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MY DIAM NORTH AND SOUTH. 



MY DIARY 



NORTH AND SOUTH 



BY 

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL. 



BOSTON: . 
T. O. H. P. BIJRNHAM 

NEW YORK: O. S. FELT, 36 Walker St. 
1863. 






RIVERSIDE, cambridgb: 

BTEREOirPED AND PRINTED BT H. 0. HOUGHTO* ^ 



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To 

RICHARD OUAIN, M. D., 

2ri)fs Uoliinie is 3ielifcatelr 

IN TESTBIONY OF THE REGARD AND GRATITUDE 

OF 

THE AUTHOR. 



I 



INTRODUCTORY. 



A BOOK which needs apologies ought never to 
have been written. This is a canon of criticism so 
universally accepted, that authors have abstained of 
late days from attempting to disarm hostility by con- 
fessions of weakness, and are almost afraid to say a 
prefatory word to the gentle reader. 

It is not to plead in mitigation of punishment or 
make an appeal ad misericordiam, I break through 
the ordinary practice, but by way of introduction 
and explanation to those who may read these vol- 
umes, I may remark that they consist for the most 
part of extracts from the diaries and note-books 
which I assiduously kept whilst I was in the 
United States, as records of the events and impres- 
sions of the hour. I have been obliged to omit 
many passages which might cause pain or injury 
to individuals still living in the midst of a civil 
war, but the spirit of the original is preserved as 
far as possible, and I would entreat my readers to 
attribute the frequent use of the personal pronoun 



viii INTRODUCTORY. 

and personal references to the nature of the sources 
from which the work is derived, rather than to the 
vanity of the author. 

Had the pages been literally transcribed, without 
omitting a word, the fate of one whose task it was 
to sift the true from the false and to avoid error 
in statements of fact, in a country remarkable for 
the extraordinary fertility with which the unreal is 
produced, would have excited some commiseration ; 
but though there is much' extenuated in these 
pages, there is not, I believe, aught set down in 
malice. My aim has been to retain so much re- 
lating to events passing under my eyes, or to 
persons who have become famous in this great 
struggle, as may prove interesting at present, though 
they did not at the time always appear in their 
just proportions of littleness or magnitude. 

During my sojourn in the States, many stars of 
the first order have risen out of space or fallen into 
the outer darkness. The watching, trustful, millions 
have hailed with delight or witnessed with terror 
the advent of a shining planet or a splendid comet, 
which a little observation has resolved into watery 
nebulae. In the Southern hemisphere, Bragg and 
Beauregard have given place to Lee and Jackson. 
In the North, McDowell has faded away before 



INTKODUCTORY. IX 

McClellan, who having been put for a short season 
in eclipse by Pope, only to culminate with in- 
creased effulgence, has finally paled away before 
Burnside. The heroes of yesterday are the martyrs 
or outcasts of to-day, and no American general 
needs a slave behind him in the triumphal chariot 
to remind him that he is a mortal. Had I foreseen 
such rapid whirls in the wheel of fortune I might 
have taken more note of the men who were be- 
low, but my business was not to speculate but to 
describe. 

The day I landed at Norfolk, a tall lean man, 
ill-dressed, in a slouching hat and wrinkled clothes, 
stood, with his arms folded and legs wide apart, 
against the wall of the hotel looking on the ground. 
One of the waiters told me it was " Professor 
Jackson," and I have been plagued by suspicions 
that in refusing an introduction which was offered 
to me, I missed an opportunity of making the ac- 
quaintance of the man of the stonewalls of Win- 
chester. But, on the whole, I have been fortunate 
in meeting many of the soldiers and statesmen who 
have distinguished themselves in this unhappy war. 

Although I have never for one moment seen rea- 
son to change the opinion I expressed in the first 

letter 1 wrote from the States, that the Union as 
a* 



X INTRODUCTOKY. 

it was could never be restored, I am satisfied the 
Free States of the North will retain and gain great 
advantages by the struggle, if they will only set 
themselves at work to accomplish their destiny, nor 
lose their time in sighing over vanished empire 
or indulging in abortive dreams of conquest and 
schemes of vengeance ; but my readers need not 
expect from me any dissertations on the present or 
future of the great republics, which have been so 
loosely united by the Federal band, nor any de- 
scription of the political system, social life, manners 
or customs of the people, beyond those which may 
be incidentally gathered from these pages. 

It has been my fate to see Americans under 
their most unfavorable aspect ; with all their na- 
tional feelings, as well as the vices of our common 
humanity, exaggerated and developed by the terri- 
ble agonies of a civil war, and the throes of po- 
litical revolution. Instead of the hum of industry, 
I heard the noise of cannon through the land. So- 
ciety convulsed by cruel passions and apprehensions, 
and shattered by violence, presented its broken an- 
gles to the stranger, and I can readily conceive 
that the America I saw, was no more like the 
country of which her people boast so loudly, than 
the St. Lawrence when the ice breaks up, hurrying 



INTRODUCTORY. xi 

onwards the rugged drift and its snowy crust of 
crags, with hoarse roar, and crashing with irresist- 
ible force and fury to the sea, resembles the calm 
flow of the stately river on a summer's day. 

The swarming communities and happy homes of 
the New England States — the most complete ex- 
hibition of the best results of the American system 
— it was denied me to witness ; but if I was de- 
prived of the gratification of worshipping the frigid 
intellectualism of Boston, I saw the effects in the 
field, among the men I met, of the teachings and 
theories of the political, moral, and religious profes- 
sors, who are the chiefs of that universal Yankee 
nation, as they delight to call themselves, and there 
recognized the radical differences which must sever 
them forever from a true union with the Southern 
States. 

The contest, of which no man can predict the 
end or result, still rages, but notwithstanding the 
darkness and clouds which rest upon the scene, I 
place so much reliance on the innate good qualities 
of the great nations which are settled on the Con- 
tinent of North America, as to believe they will be 
all the better for the sweet uses of adversity; learn- 
ing to live in peace with their neighbors, adapting 
their institutions to their necessities, and working 



xu INTRODUCTORY. 

out, not in their old arrogance and insolence — 
mistaking material prosperity for good government 
> — but in fear and trembling, the experiment on 
which they have cast so much discredit, and the 
glorious career which misfortune and folly can 
arrest but for a time. 

W. H. RUSSELL. 

London, December 8, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PASS 

Departure from Cork — The Atlantic in March — Fellow passen- 
gers — American politics and parties — The Irish in New 
York — Approach to New York . . . . • . 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Arrival at New York — Custom house — General impressions 
as to North and South — Street in New York — Hotel — 
Breakfast — American women and men — Visit to Mr. Ban- 
croft — Street railways 7 

CHAPTER III. 

"St. Patrick's day" in New York — Public dinner — American 
Constitution — General topics of conversation — Public estimate 
of the Government — Evening party at Mons. B 's . 16 

CHAPTER IV. 

Streets and shops in New York — Literature — A funeral — Din- 
ner at Mr. H 's — Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's — Political 

and social features — Literary breaklast ; Heenan and Sayers . 24 

CHAPTER V. 

OiTto the railway station — Railway carriages — Philadelphia — 
Washington — Willard's Hotel — Mr. Seward — North and 
South — The " State Department " at Washington — President 
Lincoln — Dinner at Mr. Seward's ...... 30 



CHAPTER VI. 

A state dinner at Mr. Abraham Lincoln's — !Mrs. Lincoln — The 
Cabinet Ministers — A newspaper correspondent — Good Friday 
at Washington 41 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAaK 
Barbers' sliops — Place-hunting — The Navy Yard — Dinner at 
Lord Lyons' — Estimate of Washington among his country- 
men — Washington's house and tomb — The Southern Com- 
missioners — Dinner with the Southern Commissioners — 
Feehng towards England among the Southerners — Animos- 
ity between North and South 50 

CHAPTER VIII. 

New York Press — Rumors as to the Southerners — Visit to the 
Smithsonian Institute — Pythons — Evening at Mr. Seward's 

— Rough draft of official despatch to Lord J. Russell — Esti- 
mate of its eflect iii Europe — The attitude of Virginia . . 68 

CHAPTER IX. 

Dinner at General Scott's — Anecdotes of General Scott's early 
life — The startling despatch — Insecurity of the capital . . 72 

CHAPTER X. 

Preparations for war at Charleston — My own departure for the 
Soutiiern States — Arrival at Baltimore — Commencement of 
hostilities at Fort Sumter — Bombardment of tiie fort — Gen- 
eral feeling as to North and South — Slavery — First Impres- 
sions of the city of Baltimore — Departure by steamer . . 76 

CHAPTER XI. 

Scenes on board an American steamer — The " Merrimac " — 
Irish sailors in America — Norfolk — A telegram on Sunday; 
news from the seat of war — American "chalf " and our Jack 
Tars 80 

CHAPTER XII. 

Portsmouth — Railway journey through the forest — The great 
Dismal Swamp — American newspapers — Cattle on the line 

— Negro labor — On through the Pine Forest — The Confede- 
rate flag — Goldsburongh ; popular excitement — Weldon — 
Wilmington — The Vigilance Committee . . . .87 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Sketches round Wilmington — Public opinion — Approach to 
Charleston and Fort Sumter — Introduction to Genei'al Beaure- 
gard — Ex-Governor Manning — Conversation on the chances 
of the war — "King Cotton" and England — Visit to Fort 
Sumter — Market-place at Charleston . . . . .95 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XIV. 

PAQB 

Southern volunteers — Unpopularity of the Press — Charleston 

— Fort Sumter — Morris' Island — Anti-union entliusiasm — 
Anecdote of Colonel VVigthll — Interior view of the fort — North 
versus South 101 

CHAPTER XV. 

Slaves, their Masters and Mistresses — Hotels — Attempted boat- 
journey to Fort Moultrie — Excitement at Charleston ajxainst 
New York — Pi-eparations for war — General Beauregard — 
Southern opinion as to the policy of the North, and estimate of 
the eflect of the war on England, through the cotton market — 
Aristocratic feeling in the South 112 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Charleston : the Market-place — Irishmen at Charleston — Gov- 
ernor Pickens: his political economy and theories — News- 
paper offices and counting-houses — Rumors as to the war 
policy of the South 120 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception — By steamer to 
Georgetown — Description of the town — A country mansion 

— Masters and slaves — Slave diet — Humming-bu-ds — Land 
irrigation — Negro quarters — Back to Georgetown . . . 125 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Chmate of the Southern States — General Beauregard — Risks of 
the post-office — Hatred of New England — By railway to Sea 
Island plantation — Sporting in South Carolina — An hour on 
board a canoe in the dark 135 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Domestic negroes — Negro oarsmen — Off to the fishing-grounds 

— The devil-fish — Bad sport — The drum-fish — Negro quar- 
ters — Want of drainage — Thievish propensities of the blacks 

— A Southern estimate of Southerners . . . . . 141 



CHAPTER XX. 

By railway to Savannah — Description of the city — Rumors of 
the last few days — State of afl'airs at Washington — Prepara- 
tions for Avar — Cemetery of Bonaventure — Road made of 
oj'ster-shells — Appropriate features of the cemetery — The 
Tatnall family — Dinner-party at Mr. Green's — Feehng in 
Georgia against the North 149 



XYi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PA08 

The river at Savannah — Commodore Tatnall — Fort Pulaski — 
Want of a fleet to the Southerners — Strong feeUng of the 
women — Slaverv considered in its resuUs — Cotton and Geor- 
gia — Otf for Montgomery — The Bishop of Georgia — The 
Bible and Slavery — Macon — Dislike of United States gold 165 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Slave-pens ; Negroes on sale or hire — Popular feeling as to Se- 
cession — Beauregard and speech-making — Arrival at Mont- 
gomery — Bad hotel accommodation — Knights of the Golden 
Circle — Reflections on Slavery — Slave auction — The Legis- 
lative Assembly — A " live chattel " knocked down — Rumors 
from the North (true and false) and prospects of war . . 162 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Proclamation of war — JeflTerson Davis — Interview with the 
President of the Confederacy — Passport and safe-conduct — 
Messrs. Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin — Privateering and 
letters of marque — A reception at Jeflersou Davis's — Dinner 
at Mr. Benjamin's 172 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mr. Wigfall on the Confederacy — Intended departure from the 
South — Northern apathy and Southern activity — Future 
prospects of the Union — South Carolina and cotton — The 
theory of slavery — Indilference at New York — Departure 
from Montgomery 179 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The River Alabama — Voyage by steamer — Selma — Om: cap- 
tain and his slaves — " Running " slaves — Negro views of hap- 
piness — Mobile — Hotel — The city — Mr. Forsyth . . 184 

CHxVPTER XXVI. 

Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan — War to the knife the cry of 
the South — The " State " and the " States "—Bay of Mobile 
— The forts and their inmates — Opinions as to an att;xck on 
Washington — Rumors of actual war 192 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Pensacola and Fort Pickens — Neutrals and their friends — Coast- 
ing—Sharks — The blockading fleet — The stars and stripes, 
and stars and bars — Domestic feuds caused by the war — 
Captain Adams and General Bragg — Interior of Fort Pickens 197 



CONTENTS. xvii 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PASS 

Bitters before breakfast — An old Crimean acquaintance — Earth- 
works and batteries — Estimate of cannons — Magazines — Hos- 
pitality — English and American introductions and leave-tak- 
ings — Fort Pickens : its interior — Return towards Mobile — 
Pursued by a strange sail — Running the blockade — Landing 
at Mobile 210 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Judge Campbell — Dr. Nott — Slavery — Departure for New Or- 
leans — Down the river — Fear of cruisers — Approach to 
New Orleans — Duelling — Streets of New Orleans — Un- 
healthiness of the city — Public opinion as to the war — Happy 
and contented negroes 225 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The first blow struck — The St. Charles Hotel — Invasion of Vir- 
ginia by the Federals — Death of Col. Ellsworth — 'Evening 
at Mr. Slidell's — Public comments on the war — Richmond 
the capital of the Confederacy — Military preparations — Gen- 
eral society — Jewish element — Visit to a battle-field of 1815 . 234 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Carrying arms — New Orleans jail — Desperate characters — 
Executions — Female maniacs and prisoners — The river and 
levee — Climate of New Orleans — Population — General dis- 
tress — Pressure of the blockade — Money — Philosophy of 
abstract rights — The doctrine of State Rights — Theoretical 
defect in the Constitution . 244 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Up the Mississippi — Free negroes and English policy — Mo- 
notony of the river scenery — Visit to M. Roman — Slave 
quarters — A slave-dance — Slave-children — Negro hospital — 
General opinion — Confidence in Jefierson Davis . . . 253 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Ride through the maize-fields — Sugar plantation : negroes at 
work — Use of the lash — Feeling towards France — Silence of 
the country — Negroes and dogs — Theory of slavery — Phys- 
ical formation of the negro — The defence of slavery — The 
masses for negro souls — Convent of the Sacre Coeur — Ferry 
house — A large land-owner 261 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Negroes — Sugar-cane plantations — The negro and cheap labor 
— Mortality of blacks and whites — Irish labor in Louisiana — 
A sugar-house — Negro children — Want of education — Negro 
diet — Negro hospital — Spirits in the morning — Breakfast — 
More slaves — Creole planters 270 



XVUl CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

PAGE 

War-rumors, and military movements — Governor Aranning's 
slave plantations — Fortunes m:>de by slave-labor — Frogs for 
the table — The forest — Cotton and sugar — A thunder-storm 280 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Visit to Mr. M'Call's plantation — Irish and Spaniards — The 
planter — A Soutiiern sporting man — The Creoles — Leave 
Houmas — Donaldsonville — Description of the City — Baton 
Rouge — Steamer to Natchez — Southern feeling ; faith in Jef- 
ferson Davis — Rise and progress of prosperity for the plant- 
ers — Ultimate issue of the war to both North and South . . 284 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Down the Mississippi — Hotel at Vicksburg — Dinner — Public 
meeting — News of the progress of the war — Slavery and 
England — Jackson — Governor Pettus — Insecurity of life — 
Strong Southern enthusiasm — Troops bound for the North — 
Approach to Memphis — Slaves for sale — Memphis — General 
Pillow 295 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Camp Randolph — Cannon practice — Volunteers — " Dixie " — 
Forced return from the South — Apathy of the North — Gen- 
eral retrospect of politics — Energy and earnestness of the 
South — Fire-arms — Position of Great Britain towards the bel- 
ligerents — Feeling towards the Old Country . . . ' . 309 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Heavy Bill — Railway travelling — Introductions — Assassina- 
tions — Tennessee — " Corinth " — " Tory " — " Hunibolt " — 
" The Confederate Camp " — Retm-n Northwards — Columbus 
— Cairo — The Slavery Question — Prospects of the War — 
Coarse journalism 322 

CHAPTER XL. 

Camp at Cairo — The North and the South in respect to Eu- 
rope — Political reflections — Mr. Colonel Oglesby — My 
speech — Northern and Southern soldiers compared — Amer- 
ican country -walks — Recklessness of life — Want of cavalry 
Emeute in the camp — Defects of army medical department — 
Horrors of war — Bad discipline 337 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Impending battle — By railway to Chicago — Northern enlighten- 
ment — Mound City — "Cotton is King" — Land in the 
suites — Dead level of American society — Return into the 
Union — American homes — Across the Prairie — White labor- 
ers — New pillager — Lake Michigan 34« 



CONTENTS. xix 

CHAPTER XLII. 

FAOB 

Progress of events — Policy of Great Britain as regarded by the 
North — The American press and its connnents — Privacy a 
luxury — Chicago — Senator Douglas and his widow — Amer- 
ican ingratitude — Apatliy in volunteering — Colonel Tur- 
chin's camp 354 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Niagara — Impression of the Falls — Battle scenes in the neigh- 
borhood — A village of Indians — General Scott — Hostile 
movements on both sides — The Hudson — Military school 
at West Point — Return to New York — Altered appearance 
of the city — Misery and suffering — Altered state of public 
opinion, as to the Union and towards Great Britain . . . 360 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Departure for Washington — A "servant" — The American 
Press on the War — Military aspect of the States — Philadel- 
phia — Baltimore — Washington — Lord Lyons — ^[r. Sumner 
— Irritation against Great Britain — "Independence" day — 
Meeting of Congress — General state of affairs .... 373 

CHAPTER XLV. 

Interview with Mr. Seward — My passport — Mr. Seward's views 
as to the war — Illumination at Washington — My " servant " 
absents himself — New York journalism — The Capitol — Inte- 
rior of Congress — The President's Message — Speeches in 
Congress — Lord Lyons — General McDowell — Low standard 
in the army — Accident to the " Stars and Stripes " — A street 
row — Mr. Bigelow — Mr. N.P.Willis 380 

CHAPTER XL VI. 

Arlington Heights and the Potomac — Washington — The Fed- 
eral camp — General McDowell — Flying rumors — Newspaper 
correspondents — General Fremont — Silencing the Press and 
Telegraph — A Loan Bill — Interview with Mr. Cameron — 
Newspaper criticism on Lord Lyons — Rumors about McClel- 
lan — The Northern army as reported and as it is — General 
McClellan 393 

CHAPTER XL VII. 

Fortress Monroe — General Butler — Hospital accommodation — 
Wounded soldiers — Aristocratic pedigrees — A great gun — 
Newport News — Fraudulent contractors — General Butler — 
Artillery practice — Contraband negroes — Confederate lines — 
Tombs of American loyalists — Troops and contractors — Du- 
ryea's New York Zouaves — Military calcxilations — A voyage 
by steamer to Annapolis 405 



XX CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

PAGB 

The "State House" at Annapolis — Washington — Greneral Scott's 
quarters — Want of a stall" — Rival camps — Demand for horses 
— Popular excitement — Lord Lyons — General JNIcDowell's 
movements — Retreat from Fairfax Court House — General 
Scott's quarters — General Mansfield — Battle of Bull Run . 423 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

Skirmish at Bull's Run — The Crisis in Congress — Dearth of 
horses — War Prices at Washington — Estimate of tlie effects 
of Bull Run — Password and Comitcrsign — Transatlantic View 
of "The Times" — Difficulties of a Newspaper Correspond- 
ent in the Field 434 

CHAPTER L. 

To the scene of action — The Confederate camp — Centreville — 
Action at Bull Rim — Defeat of the Federals — Disorderly re- 
treat to Centreville — My ride back to Washington . . . 442 

CHAPTER LI. 

A runaway crowd at Washington — Tiie army of the Potomac 
in retreat — ^lail-day — Want of order and authority — News- 
paper lies — Alarm at Washington — Confederate prisoners — 

• General JMcClellan — M. Mercier — Etiects of the defeat on 
Mr. Seward and the President — McDowell — General Patter- 
son ............ 467 

CHAPTER LIl. 

Attack of illness — General McClellan — Reception at tlie White 
House — Drunkenness among the \"olunteers — Visit from Mr. 
Olmsted — Georgetown — Intense heat — McClellan and the 
Newspapers — Reception at Mr. Seward's — Alexandria — A 
Storm — Sudden Deatli of an Enijlish Officer— The Maryland 
Club — A Praver and Fast Da v — Financial Difficulties . . 479 



CHAPTER LIII. 

Return to Baltimore — Colonel Carroll — A Priest's view of the 
Abolition of Slavery — Slavery in Maryland — Harjier's Ferry 

— John Brown — Hack by train to Washington — Further ac- 
counts of Bull Run — American Vanity — My own unpopu- 
larity for speaking the truth — Killing a "Nigger" no murder 

— Navy Department 491 

CHAPTER LIV. 

A tour of inspection round the camp — A troublesome horse 

— McDowell and the President — My opinion of Bull Run 



CONTENTS. XXI 

PAQE 

indorsed by American officers — Influence of the Press — 
Newspaper correspondents — Dr. Bray — My letters — Captain 
Meagher — Mihtary adventures — Probable duration of the 
war — Lord A. Vane Tempest — The American journalist — 
Threats of assassination 605 

CHAPTER LV. 

Personal unpopularity — American naval officers — A gun levelled 
at me in fun — Increase of odium against me — Success of the 
Hatteras expedition — General Scott and McClellan — McClel- 
lan on his camp-bed — General Scott's pass refused — Prospect 
of an attack on Washington — Skirmishing — Anonymous let- 
ters — General Halleck — General McClellan and the Sabbath 

— Eumored death of Jeflerson Davis — Spread of my unpop- 
ularity — An offer for my horse — Dinner at the Legation — 
Discussion on Slavery 516 

CHAPTER LVI. 

A Crimean acquaintance — Personal abuse of myself — Close fir- 
ing — A reconnoissance — iLijor-General Bell — The Prince de 
Joinville and his nephews — American estimate of Louis Napo- 
leon — Ai-rest of members of the Maryland Legislature — Life 
at Washington — War cries — News from the Far West — 
Journey to the Western States — Along the Suscinehannah and 
Juniatii — Chicago — Sport in the prairie — Arrested for shoot- 
ing on Sunday — The town of Dwight — Return to Washing- 
ton — Mr. Seward and myself 531 

CHAPTER LVIL 

Another Crimean acquaintance — Summary dismissal of a news- 
paper correspondent — Dinner at Lord Lyons' — Review of 
artillery — " Habeas Corpus " — The President's duties — Mc- 
Clellan 's policy — The Union army — Soldiers and the patrol 

— Public men in America — Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons — 
A judge placed under arrest — Death and funeral of Senator 
Baker — Disorderly troops and officers — Official fibs — Duck- 
shooting at Baltimore 5-18 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

Grcneral Scott's resignation — Mrs. A. Lincoln — Unofficial mis- 
sion to Europe — Uneasy feeUng with regard to France — Ball 
given by the United States cavalry — Tlie United States array 

— Success at Beaufort — Arrests — Dinner at Mr. Seward's — 
News of Captain Wilkes and the Trent — ^lessrs. Mason and 
Slidell — Discussion as to Wilkes — Prince de Joinville — The 
American press on. the Trent affiiir — Absence of thieves in 
Washington— " Thanksgiving Day " — Success thus far in fii- 
vor of tiie North 560 



xxii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER LIX. 

A captain under arrest — Openinlf-tiPCOHgf ess — Colonel D'Utas- 
sy — An ex-pngilist turiunh sciiiitor — Mr. Cameron — Ball in 
the officers' huts — Presentation of standards at Arlington — 
Dinner at Lord Lyons' — Paper Currency — A polyglot dinner 

— Visit to Washington's tomb — Mr. Cliase's report — Colonel 
Seaton — Unanimity of the South — The Potomac blockade — 
A Dutch-American Crimean acquaintance — The American 
lawyers on the Trent afliiir — Mr. Sunnier — McClcllan's army 

— Impressions produced in America by tlie English press on 
the affiiir of the Trent — Mr. Sumner on the crisis — Mutual 
feelings between the two nations — Humors of war with Great 
Britain 579 

CHAPTER LX. 

News of the death of the Prince Consort — Mr. Sumner and the 
Trent affair — Despatch to Lord Russell — The Southern Com- 
missioners given up — Effects on the friends of the South 

— My own unpopularity at New York — Attack of fever — 
My tour in Canada — My return to New York in February — 
Successes of the Western States — Mr. Stanton succeeds Mr. 
Cameron as Secretary of War — Reverse and retreat of Mc- 
Clellan — My free pass — The Merriniac and Monitor — My 
arrangement to accompany McCleUan's head-quarters — Mr. 
Stanton refuses his sanction — National vanity wounded by my 
trutlifulness — My retirement and my return to Europe . . 591 



I POST .516, VETERANS 
1 ^OF FOREIGN WARS 

L. 1. 



COIlP.GEO.BEl^KEUi,Ji'. 

POST #516. VETERANS 

OF FOREIGN WARS 



MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



Departure from Cork — The Atlantic in March — Fellow passengers — 
American politics and parties — The Irish in New York — Ap- 
proach to New York. 

On the evening of 3d March, 1861, 1 was transferred from 
the little steam-tender, which plies between Cork and the an- 
chorage of the Cunard steamers at the entrance of the harbor, 
to the deck of the good steamship Arabia, Captain Stone ; and 
at nightfall we were breasting the long rolling waves of the 
Atlantic. 

The voyage across the Atlantic has been done by so many 
able hands, that it would be superfluous to describe mine, 
though it is certain no one passage ever resembled another, 
and no crew or set of passengers in one ship were ever iden- 
tical with those in any other. For thirteen days the Atlantic 
followed its usual course in the month of March, and was true 
to the traditions which affix to it in that month the character 
of violence and moody changes, from bad to worse and back 
again. The wind was sometimes dead against us, and then 
the infelix Arabia with iron energy set to work, storming 
great Malakhofs of water, which rose above her like the side 
of some sward-coated hill crested with snow-drifts ; and hav- 
ing gained the summit, and settled for an instant among the 
hissing sea-horses, ran plunging headlong down to the en- 
counter of another wave, and (thus went battling on with heart 
of fii'e and breath of i\ame-^ i^hews^est ■ oUis vigor — hour 
after hour. 

The traveller for pleasure had bett^j^vaid- the Atlantic in 

the month of March. The wind-w<vsy.s®metimes with us, and 

then the sensations of the passengers and the conduct of the 

ship were pretty much as they had been during the adverse 

1 



2 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

breezes before, varied by the performance of a very violent 
"yawing" from side to sid'e,*«T¥t .certain squashings of the 
paddle-boxes into the yeasty "waters, which now ran a race 
Avith us and each other, as if bent on chasing us down, and 
rolling their boarding parties with foaming crests down on our 
decks. The boss, which we represented in the stormy shield 
around us, still moved on ; day by day our microcosm shifted 
its position in the ever-advancing circle of which it was the 
centre, with all around and within it ever undergoing a sea 
change. 

The Americans on board were, of course, the most interest- 
ing passengers to one like myself, who was going out to visit 
the great Republic under very peculiar circumstances. There 
was, first, Major Garnett, a Virginian, who was going back 
to his State to follow her fortunes. He was an officer of the 
regular army of the United States, who had served with dis- 
tinction in Mexico ; an accomplished, well-read man ; reserved, 
and rather gloomy ; full of the doctrine of States' Rights, and 
animated with a considerable feeling of contempt for the New 
Englanders, and with the strongest prejudices in favor of the 
institution of slavery. He laughed to scorn the doctrine that 
all men are born equal in the sense of all men having equal 
rights. Some were born to be slaves — some to be laborers 
in the lower strata above the slaves — others to follow useful 
mechanical arts — the rest were born to rule and to own their 
fellow-men. There was next a young Carolinian, who had 
left his post as attache at St. Petersburgh to return to his 
State: thus, in all probability, avoiding the inevitable super- 
session which awaited him at the hands of the new Govern- 
ment at Washington. He represented, in an intensified form, 
all the Virginian's opinions, and held that Mr. Calhoun's in- 
terpretation of the Constitution was incontrovertibly right. 
There were difficulties in the way of State sovereignty, he 
confessed ; but they were only in detail — the principle was 
unassailable. 

To Mr. Mitchell, South Carolina represented a power quite 
sufficient to meet all the Northern States in arms. " The 
North will attempt to blockade our coast," said he ; " and in 
that case, the South must march to the attack by land, and 
will probably act ih \iTginia." " But if the North attempts 
to do more than institute a blockade ? — for instance, if their 
fleet attack your seaport towns, and laud men to occupy 
them ? " " Oh, in that case we are quite certain of beating 



PASSENGERS. — AMERICAN POLITICS. 3 

them." Mr. Julian Mitchell was indignant at the idea of 
submitting to the rule of a " rail-splitter," and of such men 
as Seward and Cameron. " No gentleman could tolerate such 
a Government." 

An American family from Nashville, consisting of a lady 
and her son and daughter, were warm advocates of a " gen- 
tlemanly " government, and derided the Yankees with great 
bitterness. But they were by no means as ready to encoun- 
ter" the evils of war, or to break up the Union, as the South- 
Carolinian or the Virginian ; and in that respect they repre- 
sented, I was told, the negative feelings of the Border States, 
which are disposed to a temporizing, moderate course of ac- 
tion, most distasteful to the passionate seceders. 

There were also two Louisiana sugar-planters on board — 
one owning 500 slaves, the other rich in some thousands of 
acres ; they seemed to care very little for the political aspects 
of the question of Secession, and regarded it merely in refer- 
ence to its bearing on the sugar crop, and the security of slave 
property. Secession was regarded by them as a very extreme 
and violent measure, to which the State had resorted with re- 
luctance ; but it was obvious, at the same time, that, in event^ 
of a general secession of the Slave States from tlie North, 
Louisiana could neither have maintained her connection with 
the North, nor have stood in isolation from her sister States. 

All these, and some others who were fellow-passengers, 
might be termed Americans — pur sang. Garnett belonged 
to a very old family in Virginia. Mitchell came from a stock 
of several generations' residence in South Carolina. The 
Tennessee family were, in speech and thought, types of what 
Europeans consider true Americans to be. Now take the 
other side. First there was an exceedingly intelligent, well- 
informed young merchant of New York — nephew of an Eng- 
lish county Member, known for his wealth, liberality, and mu- 
nificence. Educated at a university in the Northern States, 
he had lived a good deal in England, and was returning to 
his father from a course of book-keeping in the house of his 
uncle's firm in Liverpool. His father and uncle were born 
near Coleraine, and he had just been to see the humble dwell- 
ing, close to the Giant's Causeway, which sheltered their 
youth, and where their race was cradled. In the war of 1812, 
the brothers were about sailing in a privateer fitted out to 
prey against the British, when accident fixed one of them in 
Liverpool, where he founded the house which has grown so 



4 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

greatly with the development of trade between New York 
and Lancashire, whilst the other settled in the States. With- 
out being violent in tone, the young Northerner was very res- 
olute in temper, and determined to do all which lay in his 
power to pi-event the " glorious Union " being broken up. 

The " Union " has thus founded on two continents a family 
of princely wealth, whose originals had probably fought with 
bitterness in their early youth against the union of Great 
Britain and Ireland. But did Mr. Brown, or the other Amer- 
icans who shared his views, unreservedly approve of Ameri- 
can institutions, and consider them faultless ? By no means. 
The New Yorkers especially were eloquent on the evils of the 
suffrage, and of the license of the Press in their own city ; 
and displayed much irritation on the subject of naturalization. 
The Irish were useful, in their way, making roads and work- 
ing hard, for there were few Americans who condescended to 
manual labor, or who could not make far more money in 
higher kinds of work ; but it was absurd to give the Irish 
votes which they used to destroy the influence of native-born 
citizens, and to sustain a corporation and local bodies of un- 
surpassable turpitude, corruption, and inefficiency. 

Another young merchant, a college friend of the former, 
■was just returning from a tour in Europe with his amiable 
sister. His father was the son of an Irish immigrant, but he 
did not at all differ from the other gentlemen of his city in 
the estimate in which he held the Irish element ; and though 
he had no sti"ong bias one way or other, he was quite resolved 
to support the abstraction called the Union, and its represen- 
tative fact — the Federal Government. Thus the agricultur- 
ist and the trader — the grower of raw produce and the mer- 
chant who dealt in it — were at opposite sides of the question 
— wide apart as the Northern and Southern Poles. They 
sat apart, ate apart, talked apart — two distinct nations, with 
intense antipathies on the part of the South, which was active 
and aggressive in all its demonstrations. 

The Southerners have got a strange charge de plus against 
the Irish. It appears that the regular army of the United 
States is mainly composed of Irish and Germans ; very few 
Americans indeed being low enough, or martially disposed 
enough, to " take the shilling." In case of a conflict, which 
these gentlemen think inevitable, " low Irish mercenaries 
would," they say, " be pitted against the gentlemen of the 
South, and the best blood in the States would be spilled by 



NORTHERNERS. O 

fellows whose lives are worth nothing whatever." Poor 
Paddy is regarded as a mere working machine, fit, at best, to 
serve against Choctaws and Serainoles. His facility of re- 
production has to compensate for the waste which is caused 
by the development in his unhappy head of the organs of 
combativeness and destructiveness. Certainly, if the war is 
to be carried on by the United States' regulars, the Southern 
States will soon dispose of them, for they do not number 
20,000 men, and their officers are not much in love with the 
new Government. But can it come to War ? Mr. Mitchell 
assures me I shall see some " pretty tall fighting." 

The most vehement Northerners in the steamer are Ger- 
mans, who are going to the States for the first time, or return- 
ing there. They have become satisfied, no doubt, by long 
process of reasoning, that there is some anomaly in the condi- 
tion of a country which calls itself the land of liberty, and is 
at the same time the potent palladium of serfdom and human 
chattelry. When they are not sea-sick, which is seldom, the 
Teutons rise up in all the might of their misery and dirt, and, 
making spasmodic efforts to smoke, blurt out between the 
puffs, or in moody intervals, sundry remarks on American 
politics. "These are the swine," quoth Garnett, "who are 
swept out of German gutters as too foul for them, and who 
come over to the States and presume to control the fate and 
the wishes of our people. In their own country they proved 
they were incapable of either earning a living, or exercising 
the duties of citizenship ; and they seek in our country a 
license denied them in their own, and the means of living 
which they could not acquire anywhere else." 

And for myself I may truly say this, that no man ever set 
foot on the soil of the United States with a stronger and sin- 
cerer desire to ascertain and to tell the truth, as it appeared to 
him. I had no theories to uphold, no prejudices to subserve, 
no interests to*advance, no instructions to fulfil ; I was a free 
agent, bound to communicate to the powerful organ of public 
opinion I represented, my own daily impi-essions of the men, 
scenes, and actions around me, without fear, favor, or aftec- 
'tion of or for anything but that which seemed to me to be the 
truth. As to the questions which were distracting the States, 
my mind was a tabula rasa, or, rather, tabula non scripta. I 
felt indisposed to view with favor a rebellion against one of the 
established and recognized governments of the world, which, 
though not friendly to Great Britain, nor opposed to slavery, 



"6 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

was without, so far as I could see, any legitimate cause of re- 
volt, or any injury or grievance, perpetrated or imminent, as- 
sailed by States still legs friendly to us, which the Slave States, 
pure and simple, certainly were and probably are. At the 
same time, I knew that these were grounds which I could just- 
ly take, whilst they would not be tenable by an American, who 
is by the theory on which he revolted from us and created his 
own system of government, bound to recognize the principle 
that the discontent of the popular majority with its rulers, is 
ample ground and justification for revolution. 

It was on the morning of the fourteenth day that the shores 
of New York loomed through the drift of a cold wintry sea, 
leaden-gray and comfortless, and in a little time more the 
coast, covered with snow, rose in sight. Towards the after- 
noon the sun came out and brightened the waters and the sails 
of the pretty trim schooners and coasters which were dancing 
around us. How different the graceful, tautly-rigged, clean, 
white-sailed vessels, from the round-sterned, lumpisli billyboys 
and nondescripts of the eastern coast of our isle ! Presently 
there came bowling down towards us a lively little schooner- 
yacht, very Hke the once famed " America," brightly painted 
in green, sails dazzling white, lofty ponderous masts, no tops. 
As she came nearer, we saw she was crowded with men in 
chimney-pot black hats, and coats, and the like — perhaps a 
party of citizens on pleasure, cold as the day was. Nothing 
of the kind. The craft was our pilot-boat, and the hats and 
coats belonged to the hardy mariners who act as guides to the 
port of New York. Their boat was lowered, and was soon 
under our mainchains ; and a chimney-pot hat having duly 
come over the side, delivered a mass of newspapers to the cap- 
tain, which were distributed among the eager passengers, when 
each at once became the centre of a spell-bound circle. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Arrival at New York — Custom house — General impressions as to 
North and South — Street in New York — Hotel — Breakfast — 
American women and men — Visit to Mr. Bancroft — Street rail- 
ways. 

The entrance to New York, as it was seen by us on 
16th March, is not remarkable for beauty or picturesque 
scenery, and I incurred the ire of several passengers, because 
I could not consistently say it wlis very pretty. It was 
difficult to distinguish through the snow the villas and country 
houses, which are said to be so charming in summer. But 
beyond these rose a forest of masts close by a low shore of 
brick houses and blue roofs, above the level of which again 
spires of churches and domes and cupolas announced a great 
city. On our left, at tlie narrowest part of the entrance, 
there was a very powerful casemated work of fine close stone, 
in three tiers, something like Fort Paul at Sebastopol, built 
close to the water's edge, and armed on all the faces, — ap- 
parently a tetragon with bastions. Extensive works were 
going on at the ground above it, which rises rapidly from the 
water to a height of more than a hundred feet, and the rudi- 
ments of an extensive work and heavily armed earthen para- 
pets could be seen from the channel. On the right hand, 
crossing its fire with that of the batteries and works on our 
left, there was another regular stone fort with fortified en- 
ceinte ; and higher up the channel, as it widens to the city 
on the same side, I could make out a smaller fort on the 
water's edge. The situation of the city renders it susceptible 
of powerful defence from the seaside ; and even now it would 
be hazardous to run the gauntlet of the batteries, unless in 
powerful iron-clad ships favored by wind and tide, which 
could hold the place at their mercy. Against a wooden fleet 
New York is now all but secure, save under exceptional cir- 
cumstances in favor of the assailants. 

It was dark as the steamer hauled up alongside the wharf 
on the New Jersey side of the river ; but ere the sun set, T 



8 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

could form some idea of the activity and industry of the peo- 
ple from tlie enormous ferry-boats moving backwards and for- 
wards like arks on the water, impelled by the great walking- 
beam engines, the crowded stream full of merchantmen, 
steamers, and small craft, the smoke of the factories, the tall 
chimneys, — the net-work of boats and rafts, — all the evi- 
dences of commercial life in full development. What a 
swarming, eager crowd on the quay-wall ! What a wonderful 
ragged regiment of laborers and porters, hailing us in broken 
or Hibernianized English ! " These are all Irish and Ger- 
mans," anxiously explained a New Yorker. " I'll bet fifty 
dollars there's not a native-born American among them." 

With Anglo-Saxon disregard of official insignia, American 
Custom House officers dress very much like their British 
brethren, v.'ithout any sign of authority as faint as even the 
brass button and ci'own, so that the stranger is somewhat un- 
easy when he sees unauthorized-looking people taking liber- 
ties with his plunder, especially after the admonitions he has 
received on board ship to look sharp about his things as soon 
as he lands. I was provided with an introduction to one of 
the principal officers, and he facilitated my egress, and at last 
I was bundled out through a gate into a dark alley, ankle 
deep in melted snow and mud, where I was at once engaged 
in a brisk encounter with my Irish porterhood, and, after a 
long struggle, succeeded in stowing my effiicts in and about a 
remarkable specimen of the hackney-coach of the last cen- 
tury, very high in the axle, and weak in the springs, which 
plashed down towards the river through a crowd of men 
shouting out, " You haven't paid me yet, yer honor. You 
haven't given anything to your own man that's been waiting 
here the last six months for your honor ! " " Tm the man 
that put the lugidge up, sir," &c., &c. The coach darted on 
board a great steam ferry-boat, which had on deck a number 
of similar vehicles and omnibuses ; and the gliding, shifting 
lights, and the deep, strong breathing of the engine, told me 
I was moving and afloat before I was otherwise aware of it. 
A few minutes brought us over to the lights on the New York 
side, — a jerk or two up a steep incline, — and we were rat- 
tling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mud- 
holes, squashing through snow-heaps in ill-lighted, narrow 
streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an un- 
usual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whiskey- 
shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments. 

The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stran- 



STREETS. 9 

ger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, 
Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance 
which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police 
regulations and are superior to police force, called " rowdy- 
ism." The drive was long and tortuous ; but by degrees the 
character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At 
last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alter- 
nating with far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay 
with shop-windows, tlironged in spite of the mud with well- 
dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses, — Ox- 
ford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there 
towered up a block of brickwork and stucco, with long rows 
of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd 
passing in and out of the portals, wliich were recognized as 
the barrack-like glory of American civilization, — a Broad- 
way monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons, 
concert -rooms of astounding denominations, with external 
decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholo- 
mew Fair, — churches, restaurants, confectioners, private 
houses ! again another series, — they cannot go on expanding 
foi-ever. The coach at last drives into a large square, and 
lands me at the Clarendon Hotel. 

Whilst I was crossing the sea, the President's Inaugural 
Message, the composition of which is generally attributed to 
Mr. Seward, had been delivered, and had reached Europe, 
and the causes which were at ^ork in destroying the cohesion 
of the Union had acquired greater strength and violence. 

Whatever force " the declaration of causes which induced 
the Secession of South Carolina " might have for Carojinians, 
it could not influence a foreigner who knew nothing at all of 
th? rights, sovereignty, and individual independence of a state, 
which, however, had no right to make war or peace, to coin 
money, or enter into treaty obligations with any other coun- 
try. The South Carolinian was nothing to us, quoad South 
Carolina — he was merely a citizen of the United States, and 
we knew no more of him in any other capacity tlian a French 
authority would know of a British subject as a Yorkshireman 
or a Munsterman. 

But the moving force of revolution is neither rea^"-on nor 
justice — it is most frequently passion — it is often interest. 
The American, when he seeks to prove that the Southern 
States have no right to revolt from a confederacy of states 
created by revolt, has by the principles on which he justifies 
1* 



10 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

his own revolution, placed between liiraself and the European 
a great gulf in the level of argument. According to the deeds 
and words of Amei-icans, it is difficult to see why South Caro- 
lina should not use the rights claimed for each of the thirteen 
colonies, " to alter and abolish a form of government when it 
becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established, 
and to institute a new one." And the people must be left to 
decide the question as regards their own government for them- 
selves, or the principle is worthless. The arguments, how- 
ever, which are now going on are fast tending towards the 
'ultima ratio regum. At present I find public attention is con- 
centrated on the two Federal forts, Pickens and Sumter, called 
after two officers of the revolutionary armies in the old war. 
As Alabama and South Carolina have gone out, they now de- 
mand the possession of these forts, as of the soil of their sev- 
eral states and attached to their sovereignty. On the other 
hand, the Government of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right 
to give up anything belonging to the Federal Government, 
but evidently desires to temporize and evade any decision 
which might precipitate an attack on the forts by the batteries 
and forces prepared to act against them. There is not suffi- 
cient garrison in either for an adequate defence, and the diffi- 
culty of procuring supplies is very great. Under the circum- 
stances every one is asking what the Government is going to 
do ? The Southern people have declared they will resist any 
attempt to supply or reinforce the garrisons, and in Charles- 
ton, at least, have shown they mean to keep their word. It 
is a strange situation. The Federal Government, afraid to 
speak, and unable to act, is leaving its soldiers to do as they 
please. In some instances, officers of rank, such as General 
Twiggs, have surrendered everything to the State authorities, 
and the treachery and secession of many officers in the army 
and navy no doubt paralyze and intimidate the civilians at the 
head of affairs. 

Sunday, 17th March. — The first thing I saw this morning, 
after a vision of a waiter pretending to brush my clothes with 
a feeble twitch composed of fine fibre had vanished, was a pro- 
cession of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded by a small 
band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of music), trudg- 
ing through the cold and slush two and two : they wore sham- 
rocks, or the best resemblance thereto which the American 
soil can produce, in their hats, and green -silk sashes embla- 
zoned with crownless harp upon their coats, but it needed not 



COSTUME. — HOUSES. 1 1 

these insignia to tell they were Irishmen, and their solemn mien 
indicated that they were going to mass. It was agi-eeable to 
see them so well clad and respectable looking, though occa- 
sional hats seemed as if they had just recovered from severe 
contusions, and others had the picturesque irregularity of out- 
line now and then observable in the old country. The aspect 
of the street was irregular, and its abnormal look was increased 
by the air of the passers-by, who at that hour were domestics 
— very finely dressed negroes, Irish, or German. The col- 
ored ladies made most elaborate toilets, and as they held up 
their broad crinolines over the mud looked not unlike double- 
stemmed mushrooms. " They're con cay ted poor craythures 
them niggirs, male and faymale," was the remark of the wait- 
er as he saw me watching them. " There seem to be no spar- 
rows in the streets," said I. " Sparras ! " he exclaimed ; " and 
then how did you think a little baste of a sparra could fly 
across the ochean ? " I felt rather ashamed of myself. 

And so down-stairs where there was a table d'hote room, 
with great long tables covered with cloths, plates, and break- 
fast apparatus, and a smaller room inside, to which I was di- 
rected by one of the white-jacketed waiters. Breakfast over, 
visitors began to drop in. At the " office " of the hotel, as it 
is styled, there is a tray of blank cards and a big pencil, where- 
by the cardless man who is visiting is enabled to send you his 
name and title. There is a comfortable " reception room," in 
which he can remain and read the papers, if you are engaged, 
so that there is little chance of your ultimately escaping him. 
And, indeed, not one of those who came had any but most hos- 
pitable intents. 

Out of doors the weather was not tempting. The snow lay 
in irregular layers and discolored mounds along the streets, 
and the gutters gorged with " snow-bree " flooded the broken 
pavement. But after a time the crowds began to issue from 
the churches, and it was announced as the necessity of the 
day, that we were to walk up and down the Fifth Avenue and 
look at each other. This is the west-end of London — its 
Belgravia and Grosvenoria represented in one long street, with 
offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles to it. Some of the 
houses are handsome, but the greater number have a com- 
pressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulso- 
ry narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the 
building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were 
just finished to order, — a most astonishing proof of the rapid 



12 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

development of the city. As the hall-door is made an impor- 
tant feature in the residence, the front parlor is generally a 
narrow, lanky apartment, struggling for existence between the 
hall and the partition of the next house. The outer door, 
which is always provided with fine carved panels and mould- 
ings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks much better 
than our painted doors. It is generously thrown open so as 
to show an inner door with curtains and plate plass. The 
windows, which are double on account of the climate, are fre- 
quently of plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the 
same level as the street, with a basement story beneath ; 
others are approached by flights of steps, the basement for 
servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I be- 
lieve, is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of " stoop " is 
still retained for it. 

No liveried servants are to be seen about the streets, the 
door-ways, or the area-steps. Black faces in gaudy caps, or 
an unmistakable "Biddy" in crinoline are their substitutes. 
The chief charm of the sti-eet was the living ornature which 
moved up and down the trottoirs. The costumes of Paris, 
adapted to the severity of this wintry weather, were draped 
round pretty, graceful figures which, if wanting somewhat in 
that rounded fulness of the Medicean Venus, or in height, 
were svelte and well poised. The French boot has been 
driven off the field by the Balmoral, better suited to the snow ; 
and one must at once admit — all prejudices notwithstanding 
— that the American woman is not only well shod and well 
gloved, but that she has no reason to fear comparisons, in 
foot or hand with any daughter of Eve, except, perhaps, 
the Hindoo. 

The great and most frequent fault of the stranger in 
any land is that of generalizing from a few facts. P^vcry 
one must feel there are " pretty days " and " ugly days " in 
the world, and that his experience on the one would lead him 
to conclusions very different from that to which he would 
arrive on the other. To-day I am quite satisfied that if 
the American women are deficient in stature and in that 
which makes us say, " There is a fine woman," they are easy, 
well formed, and full of grace and prettiness. Admitting a 
certain pallor — which the Russians, by the by, were wont 
to admire so much that they took vinegar to produce it — the 
face is not only pretty, but sometimes of extraordinary 
beauty, the features fine, delicate, well defined. Ruby lips, 



MR. BANCROFT. 13 

indeed, are seldom to be seen, but now and then the flashing 
of snowy-white evenly-set ivory teeth dispels the delusion 
that the Americans are — though the excellence of their den- 
tists be granted — naturally ill provided with what they take 
so much pains, by eating bon-bons and confectionery, to de- 
prive of their purity and color. 

My friend R , with whom I was walking, knew every 

one in the Fifth Avenue, and we worked our way through a 
succession of small talk nearly as far as the end of the street 
which runs out among divers places in the State of New 
York, through a debris of unfinished conceptions in masonry. 
The abrupt transition of the city into the country is not un- 
favorable to an idea that the Fifth Avenue might have been 
transported from some great workshop, where it had been built 
to order by a despot, and dropped among the Red men : in- 
deed, the immense growth of New York in this direction, 
although far inferior to that of many parts of London, is re- 
markable as the work of eighteen or twenty yeai's, and is 
rendered more conspicuous by being developed in this elon- 
gated street, and its contingents. I was introduced to many 
persons to-day, and was only once or twice asked how I liked 
New York ; perhaps I anticipated the question by expressing 
my high opinion of the Fifth Avenue. Those to whom I 
spoke had generally something to say in reference to the 
troubled condition of the country, but it was principally of a 
self-complacent nature. " I suppose, sir, you are rather sur- 
prised, coming from Europe, to find us so quiet here in New 
York: we are a peculiar people, and you don't understand us 
in Europe." 

In the afternoon I called on Mr. Banci'oft, formerly minis- 
ter to England, whose work on America must be rather rudely 
interrupted by this crisis. Anything with an " ex " to it in 
America is of little weight — ex-presidents are nobodies, 
though they have had the advantage, during their four years' 
tenure of office, of being prayed for as long as they live. So 
it is of ex-ministers, whom nobody prays for at all. Mr. 
Bancroft conversed for some time on the aspect of aftairs, but 
he appeared to be unable to arrive at any settled conclusion, 
except that the republic, though in danger, was the most 
stable and beneficial form of government in the world, and 
that as a Goverment ii had no power to coerce the people of 
the South or to save itself from the danger. I was indeed 
astonished to hear from him and others so much philosophical 



14 Mn DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

abstract reasoning as to the right of seceding, or, what is next 
to it, the want of any power in the Government to prevent 
it. 

Returning home in order to dress for dinner, I got into a 
street-railway-car, a long low omnibus drawn by horses over a 
strada ferrata in the middle of the street. It was filled with 
people of all classes, and at every crossing some one or other 
rang the bell, and the driver stopped to let out or to take in 
passengers, whereby the unoffending traveller became pos- 
sessed of much snow-droppings and mud on boots and cloth- 
ing. I found that by far a greater inconvenience caused by 
these street-railways was the destruction of all comfort or 
rapidity in ordinary carriages. 

I dined with a New York banker, who gave such a dinner 
as bankers generally give all over the world. He is a man 
still young, very kindly, hospitable, well-informed, with a most 
charming household — an Amei'ican by theory, an English- 
man in instincts and tastes — educated in Europe, and sprung 
from British stock. Considering the enormous interests he 
has at stake, I was astonished to perceive how calmly he 
spoke of the impending troubles. His friends, all men of po- 
sition in New York society, had the same dilettante tone, and 
were as little anxious for the future, or excited by the present, 
as a party of savans chronicling the movements of a " mag- 
netic storm." 

On going back to the hotel, I heard that Judge Daly and 
some gentlemen had called to request that I would dine with 
the Friendly Society of St. Patrick to-morrow at Astor 
House. In what is called " the bar," I met several gentle- 
men, one of whom said, " the majority of the people of New 
York, and all the respectable people, were disgusted at the 
election of such a fellow as Lincoln to be President, and 
would back the Southern States, if it came to a split." 



CHAPTER HI. 

" St. Patrick's day " in New York — Public dinner — American Con- 
stitution — General topics of conversation — Public estimate of the 
Government — Evening party at Mons. B *s. 

Monday, ISth. — "St. Patrick's day in the morning" being 
on the 17th, was kept by the Irish to-day. In the early 
morning the sounds of drumming, fifing, and bugling came 
with the hot water and my Irish attendant into the room. 
He told me : " We'll have a pretty nice day for it. The 
weather's often agin us on St. Patrick's day." At the angle 
of the square outside I saw a company of volunteers assem- 
bling. They wore bear-skin caps, some turned brown, and 
rusty green coatees, with white facings and crossbelts, a good 
deal of gold-lace and heavy worsted epaulettes, and were 
armed with ordinary muskets, some of them with flint-locks. 
Over their heads floated a green and gold flag with mystic 
emblems, and a harp and sunbeams. A gentleman, with an 
imperfect seat on horseback, which justified a suspicion that 
he was not to the manor born of Squire or Squireen, with 
much difficulty was getting them into line, and endangering 
his personal safety by a large infantry-sword, the hilt of which 
was complicated with the bridle of his charger in some inexpli- 
cable manner. This gentleman was the officer in command 
of the martial body, who were gathering to do honor to the 
festival of the old country ; and the din and clamor in the 
streets, the strains of music, and the tramp of feet outside 
announced that similar associations were on their way to tlie 
rendezvous. The waiters in the hotel, all of whom were Irisli, 
had on their best, and wore an air of pleased importance. 
Many of their countrymen outside on the pavement exhibited 
very large decorations, plates of metal, and badges attached 
to broad ribbons over their left breasts. 

After breakfast 1 struggled with a friend through the crowd 
which thronged Union Square. Bless them ! They were all 
Irish, judging from speech and gesture and look ; for the 



16 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

most pai't decently dressed, and comfortable, evidently bent 
on enjoying the day in spite of the cold, and proud of the 
privilege of interrupting all the trade of the principal streets, 
in which the Yankees most do congregate, for the day. They 
were on the door-steps, and on the pavement men, women, 
and children, admiring the big policemen — many of them 
compatriots — and tliey swarmed at the corners, cheering 
popular town-councillors or local celebrities. Broadway was 
equally full. Flags were flying from the windows and stee- 
ples — and on the cold breeze came the hammering of drums 
and the blasts of many wind instruments. The display, suc'i 
as it was, i)artook of a military character, though not much 
more formidable in that sense than the march of the Trades 
Unions, or of Temperance Societies. Imagine Broadway 
lined for the long miles of its course by spectators mostly 
Hibernian, and the great gaudy stars and stripes, or as one 
of the Secession journals I see styles it, the " Sanguinary 
United States Gridii-on " — waving in all directions, whilst up 
its centre in the mud march the children of Erin. 

First came the acting Brigadier-General and his staff, es- 
corted by 40 lancers, very ill-dressed, and woi'se mounted : 
horses dirty, accoutrements in the same condition, bits, bridles, 
and buttons rusty and tarnislied ; uniforms ill-fitting, and badly 
put on. But the red flags and the show pleased the crowd, 
and they cheered " bould Nugent" right loudly. A band fol- 
lowed, some members of which had been evidently " smiling " 
with each otlrcr ; and next marched a body of drummers in 
military uniform, rattling away in the Fi-ench fashion. Here 
comes tlie G9th N. Y. State Militia Regiment — the battalion 
which would not turn out when the Prince of Wales was in 
New York, and whose Colonel, Corcoran, is still under court 
martial tor his i-efusal. Well, the Prince had no loss, and the 
Colonel may have had other besides political reasons for his 
dislike to i)arade his men. 

The regiment turned out, I should think, only 200 or 220 
men, fine fellows enough, but not in the least like soldiers or 
militia. The United States uniform which most of the mili- 
tary bodies wore, consists of a blue tunic and trousers, and a 
kepi-like cap, with " U. S." in front for undress. In full dress 
the officers wear large gold epaulettes, and officers and men a 
bandit-sort of felt hat looped up at one side, and decorated 
with a plume of black-ostrich feathers and silk cords. The 
absence of facings, and the want of something to finish off the 



FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 17 

collar and cuffs, render the tunic very bald and unsightly. 
Another band closed the rear of the 69th, and to eke out the 
military sliow, which in all was less than 1200 men, some com- 
panies were borrowed from another I'egiment of State Militia, 
and a troop of very poor cavalry cleared the way for the 
Napper-Tandy Artillery, which actually had three whole guns 
with them ! It was strange to dwell on some of the names of 
the societies which followed. For instance, there were tlie 
" Dungannon Volunteers of '82," prepared of course to vindi- 
cate the famous declaration that none should make laws for 
Ireland, but the Queen, Lords, and Commons of Ireland ! 
Every honest Catholic among them ignorant of the fact that 
the Volunteers of '82 were all Protestants. Then there was 
the *' Sarsfield Guard ! " One cannot conceive anything more 
hateful to the fiery high-spirited cavalier, than the republican 
form of Government, which these poor Irishmen are, they 
think, so fond of. A good deal of what passes for national 
sentiment, is in reality dislike to England and religious ani- 
mosity. 

It was much more interesting to see the long string of 
Benevolent, Friendly, and Provident Societies, with bands, 
numbering many thousands, all decently clad, and marching 
in order with banners, insignia, badges, and ribbons, and the 
Irish flag Hying along-side the "stars and stripes." I cannot 
congratulate them on the taste or good effect of their accesso- 
ries — on their symbolical standards, and ridiculous old harp- 
ers, carried on stages in " bardic costume," very like artificial 
white wigs and white cotton dressing-gowns, but the actual 
good done by these societies, is, I am told, very great, and 
their charity would cover far greater sins than incorrectness 
of dress, and a proneness to " pi})er's playing on the national 
bagpipes." The various societies mustered upwards of 10,000 
men, some of them uniformed and armed, others dressed in 
quaint garments, and all as noisy as music and talking could 
make them. The Americans appeared to regard the whole 
thing very much as an ancient Roman might have looked on 
the Saturnalia ; but Paddy was in the ascendant, and could 
not be openly trifled with. 

The crowds remained in the streets long after the proces- 
sion had passed, and I saw various pickpockets captured by 
the big policemen, and conveyed to appropriate receptacles. 
" Was there any man of eminence in that procession," I 
asked. " No ; a few small Jocal politicians, some wealthy 



18 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

store-keepers, and beer-saloon owners perhaps ; but the mass 
were of the small bourgeoisie. Such a man as Mr. O'Conor, 
who may be considered at the head of the New York bar 
for instance, would not take part in it." 

In the evening 1 went, according to invitation, to the Astor 
House — a large hotel, with a front like a railway terminus, 
in the Americo-Classical style, with great Doric columns and 
portico, and found, to my surprise, that the friendly party 
was to be a great public dinner. The halls were filled with 
the company, few or none in evening dress ; and in a fev, 
minutes I was presented to at least twenty-four gentlemen 
whose names I did not even hear. The use of badges, med- 
als, and ribbons, might, at first, lead a stranger to believe he 
was in very distinguished military society ; but he would soon 
learn that these insignia were the decorations of benevolent 
or convivial associations. There is a latent taste for these 
things in spite of pure republicanism. At the dinner there 
were Americans of Dutch and Elnglish descent, some " Yan- 
kees," one or two Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. 
The chairman, Judge Daly, was indeed a true son of the 
soil, and his speeches were full of good humor, fluency, and 
wit ; but his greatest eiFect was produced by the exhibition of 
a tuft of shamrocks in a flower-pot, which had been sent 
from Ireland for the occasion. This is done annually, but, 
like the miracle of St. Januarius, it never loses its effect, and 
always touches the heart. 

I confess it was to some extent curiosity to observe the 
sentiment of the meeting, and a desire to see how Irishmen 
were affected by the change in their climate, which led me to 
the room. I came away i-egretting deeply that so many 
natives of the British Isles should be animated with a hostile 
feeling towards England, and that no statesman has yet arisen 
who can devise a panacea for the evils of these passionate 
and unmeaning differences between races and religions. Their 
strong antipathy is not diminished by the impossibility of grat- 
ifying it. They live in hope, and certainly the existence of 
these feelings is not only troublesome to American statesmen, 
but mischievous to the Irish themselves, inasmuch as they are 
rendered with unusual readiness the victims of agitators or 
political intriguers. The Irish element, as it is called, is much 
regarded in voting times, by suffraging bishops and others ; at 
other times, it is left to its work and its toil — Mr. Seward and 
Bishop Hughes are supposed t^ be its present masters. Un- 



OFFERS OF SERVICE. 19 

(loubtedly the mass of those I saw to-day were better dad than 
they would have been if they remained at home. As I said 
in the speech which I was forced to make much against my 
will, by the gentle violence of my comi)anions, never had I 
seen so many good hats and coats in an assemblage of Irishmen 
in any other part of the world. 

March 19. The morning newspapers contain reports of 
last night's speeches which are amusing in one respect, at all 
events, as affording specimens of the different versions which 
may be given of the same matter. A " citizen " who was kind 
enough to come in to shave me, paid me some easy compli- 
ments, in the manner of the " Barber of Seville," on what he 
termed the " oration " of the night before, and then proceeded 
to give his notions of the merits and defects of the American 
Constitution. " He did not care much about the Franchise — 
it was given to too many he thought. A man must be five 
years resident in New York before he is admitted to the privi- 
leges of voting. When an emigrant arrived, a paper was de- 
livered to him to certify the fact, which he produced after 
lapse of five years, when he might be registered as a voter ; if 
he omitted the process of registration, he could however vote 
if identified by two householders, and a low lot," observed the 
barber, " they are — Irish and such like. I don't want any 
of their votes." 

In the afternoon a number of gentlemen called, and made 
the kindest offers of service ; letters of introduction to all 
parts of the States ; facilities of every description — all ten- 
dered with frankness. 

I was astonished to find little sympathy and no respect for 
the newly installed Government. They were regarded as 
obscure or undistinguished men. I alluded to the circumstance 
that one of the journals continued to speak of " The President " 
in the most contemptuous manner, and to designate him as the 
great " Rail-Splitter." " Oh yes," said the gentleman with 
whom I was conversing, " that must strike you as a strange 
way of mentioning the Cliief Magistrate of our great Republic, 
but the fact is, no one minds what the man writes of any one, 
his game is to abuse every res|)ectable man in the country in 
order to take his revenge on them for his social exclusion, and 
at the same time to please the ignorant masses who delight in 
vituperation and scandal." 

In the evening, dining again with my friend the banker, I 
had a favorable opportunity of hearing more of the special 



20 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

pleading which is brought to bear on the solution of the grav- 
est political questions. It would seem as if a council of phy- 
sicians were wrangling with each other over abstract dogmas 
respecting life and health, whilst their patient was struggling 
in the agonies of death before them ! In the comfortable and 
well-appointed house wherein I met sevei'al men of position, 
acquirements, and natui'al sagacity, there was not the smallest 
evidence of uneasiness on account of circumstances which, to 
the eye of a stranger, betokened an awful crisis, if not the 
impending dissolution of society itself. Stranger still, the 
acts which are bringing about such a calamity are not re- 
gai'ded with disfavor, or, at least, are not considered unjus- 
tifiable. 

Among the guests were the Hon. Horatio Seymour, a for- 
mer Governor of the State of New York ; Mr. Tylden, an 
acute lawyer ; and Mr. Bancroft. The result left on my mind 
by their conversation and arguments was that, according to 
the Constitution, the Government could not employ force to 
prevent secession, or to compel States which had seceded by 
the will of the people to acknowledge the Federal power. In 
fact, according to them, the Federal Government was the 
mere machine put forward by a Society of Sovereign States, 
as a common instrument for certain ministerial acts, more 
particularly those which affected the external relations of the 
Confederation. I do not think that any of the guests sought 
to turn the channel of talk upon politics, but the occasion of- 
fered itself to Mr. Horatio Seymour to give me his views of 
the Constitution of the United States, and by degrees the 
theme spread over the table. I had bought the " Consti- 
tution " for three cents in Broadway in the forenoon, and had 
read it carefully, but I could not find that it was seU'-expound- 
ing ; it referred itself to the Supreme Court, but what was, to 
support the Supreme Court in a contesfc»\vith armed power, 
either of Government or people ? There was not a man who 
maintained the Government had any power to coerce the 
people of a State, or to force a State to remain in the Union, 
or under the action of the Fedei-al Government ; in other 
words, the symbol of power at Washington is not at all anal- 
ogous to that whicii represents an established Government in 
other countries. Quid prosunt leges sine armis ? Although 
they admitted the Southern leaders had meditated " the trea- 
son against the Union " years ago, they could not bring them- 
selves to allow their old opponents, the Republicans now in 



MR. SEYMOUR. 21 

power, to dispose of the armed force of the Union against 
their brother democrats in the Southern States. 

Mr. Seymour is a man of compromise, but his views go 
farther than those which were entertained by his party ten 
years ago. Although secession would produce revolution, it 
was, nevertheless, " a right," founded on abstract principles, 
which could scarcely be abrogated consistently with due re- 
gard to the original compact. One of the company made a 
remark which was true enough, I dare say. We were talk- 
ing of the ditRculty of relieving Fort Sumter — an infallible 
topic just now. " If the British or any foreign power were 
threatening the fort," said he, "our Government would tind 
means of relieving it fast enough." In fact, the Federal Gov- 
ernment is groping in the dark ; and whilst its friends are 
telling it to advance boldly, there are myriad voices shrieking 
out in its ears, " If you put out a foot you are lost." There 
is neither army nor navy available, and the ministers have no 
machinery of rewards, and means of intrigue, or modes of 
gaining adherents known to European administrations. The 
democrats behold with silent satisfaction the troubles into 
which the Republican triumph has plunged the country, and 
are not at all disposed to extricate them. The 'most notable 
way of impeding their efforts is to knock them down with the 
" Constitution " every time they rise to the surface and begin 
to swim out. 

New York society, however, is easy in its mind just now, 
and the upper world of millionnaire merchants, bankers, con- 
tractors, and great traders are glad that the vulgar Republicans 
are suffering for their success. Not a man there but resented 
the influence given by universal suffrage to the mob of the 
city, and complained of the intolerable effects of their ascen- 
dency — of the corruption of the municipal bodies, the venality 
of electors and elected, and the abuse, waste, and profligate 
outlay of the public funds. Of these there were many illus- 
trations given to me, garnished with historietts of some of the 
civic dignitaries, and of their coadjutors in the press ; but it 
did not require proof that universal suffrage in a city of whicli 
perhaps three fourths of the voters were born abroad or of 
foreign parents, and of whom many were the scum swept off 
the seethings of P2uropean populations, must work most in- 
juriously on property and capital. I confess it is to be much 
wondered at that the consequences are not more evil ; but no 
doubt the time is coming when the mischief can no longer 



22 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

be borne, and a social reform and revolution must be inev- 
itable. 

Within only a very few hundreds of yards from the house 

and picture-fjallery of Mons. B , the representative of 

European millions, are the hovels and lodgings of his equals 
in political power. This evening I visited the house of Mons. 

B , where his wife had a i-eception, to which nearly the 

whole of the party went. When a man looks at a suit of 
armor made to order by the first blacksmith in Europe, he 
observes that the finish of the joints and hinges is much higher 
than in the old iron clothes of the former time. Possibly the 
metal is better, and the chasings and garniture as good as the 
work of Milan, but the observer is not for a moment led to 
imagine that the fabric has stood proof of blows, or that it 
smacks of ancient watch-fire. If he were asked why it is so, 
he could not tell ; any more perhaps than he could define ex- 
actly the difference between the lustrous, highly-jewelled, well- 
gi-eaved Achaian of New York and the very less effective and 
showy creature who will in every society over the world pass 
muster as a gentleman. Here was an elegant house — I use 
the word in its real meaning — with pretty statues, rich car- 
pets, handsome furniture and a gallery of charming Meisso- 
niers and genre pieces ; the saloons admirably lighted — a fair 
fine large suite, filled with the prettiest women in the most 
delightful toilets, with a proper fringe of young men, or- 
derly, neat, and well turned-out, fretting against the usual 
advanced posts of turbaned and jewelled dowagers, and pro- 
vided with every accessory to make the whole good society ; 
for there was wit, sense, intelligence, vivacity ; and yet there 
was something wanting — not in host or hostess, or company, 
or house — where was it ? — which was conspicuous by its 
absence. Mr. Bancroft was kind enough to introduce me to 
the most lovely faces and figures, and so far enable me to 
judge that nothing could be more beautiful, easy, or natural 
than the womanhood or girlhood of New York. It is pretti- 
ness rather than fineness ; regular, intelligent, wax-like faces, 
graceful little figures; none of the grandiose Roman type 
which Von Raumer recognized in London, as in the Holy 
City, a quarter of a century ago. Natliele'ss, the young men 
of New York ought to be thankful and grateful, and try to be 
worthy of it. Late in the evening I saw these same young 
men, Novi Eboracenses, at their clul^, dicing for drinks and 
oathing for nothing, and all very friendly and hospitable. 



THE CLUB-HOUSE. 23 

The club-house is remarkable as the mansion of a happy 
man who invented or patented a waterproof hat-lining, where- 
by he built a sort of Sallustian villa, Avith a central court- 
yard, a I'Alhambra, with fountains and flowers, now passed 
away to the New York Club. Here was Pratt's, or the de- 
funct Fielding, or the old C. C. C.'s in disi'egard of time and 
regard of drinks — and nothing more. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Streets and shops in New York — Literature — A funeral — Dinner at 

Mr. H 's — Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's — Tolitical and social 

features — Literary breakfast ; Heenan and Sayers. 

March 9.0th. — The papers are still full of Sumter and 
Pickens. The reports that they are or are not to be relieved 
are stated and contradicted in each paper without any regard 
to individual consistency. The " Tribune " has an article on 
my speech at the St. Patrick's dinner, to which it is pleaded 
to assign reasons and motives which the speaker, at all events, 
never had in making it. 

Received several begging letters, some of them apparently 
with only too much of the stamp of reality about their tales 
of disappointment, distress, and suifering. In the afternoon 
went down Broadway, which was crowded, notwithstanding 
the piles of blackened snow by the curbstones, and the sloughs 
of mud, and half-frozen pools at the crossings. Visited sev- 
eral large stores or shops — some rival the best establish- 
ments in Paris or London in richness and in value, and far 
exceed them in size and splendor of exterior. Some on 
Broadway, built of marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from 
£6,000 to £8,000 a year in mere rent. Here, from the base 
to the fourth or fifth story, are piled collections of all the 
world can produce, often in excess of all possible requirements 
of the country ; indeed I was told that the United States have 
always imported more goods than they could pay for. Jewel- 
lers' shops are not numerous, but there are two in Broadway 
which have splendid collections of jewels, and of workmanship 
in gold and silver, displayed to the greatest advantage in fine 
apartments decorated with black marble, statuary, and plate- 
glass. 

New York has certainly all the air of a " nouveau riche." 
There is about it an utter absence of any appearance of a 
grandfather — one does not see even such evidences of eccen- 



NOETH AND SOtJTH. 25 

trie taste as are afforded in Paris and London, by the exist- 
ence of shops where the old famihes of a country cast off 
their "exuvife" which are sought by the new, that they may 
persuade the world they are old; there is no curiosity shop, 
not to speak of a Wardour Street, and such efforts as are made 
to supply the deficiency reveal an enormous amount of igno- 
rance or of bad taste. The new arts, however, flourish ; the 
plague of photography has spread through all the corners of 
the city, and the shop-windows glare with flagrant displays of 
the most tawdry art. In some of the large booksellers' shops 
— Appleton's for example — are striking proofs of the activ- 
ity of the American press, if not of the vigor and originalitj'' 
of the American intellect. I passed down long I'ovvs of shelves 
laden Avith the works of European authors, for the most part, 
oh shame ! stolen and translated into American type without 
the smallest compunction or scruple, and without the least in- 
tention of ever yielding the most pitiful deodand to the au- 
thors. Mr. Appleton sells no less than one million and a half 
of Webster's spelling-books a year ; his tables are covered 
with a flood of pamphlets, some for, others against coercion ; 
some for, others opposed to slavery, — but when I asked for 
a single solid, substantial work on the present difficulty, I was 
told there was not one published worth a cent. With such 
men as Audubon and Wilson in natural history, Prescott and 
Motley in history, Washington Irving and Cooper in fiction, 
Longfellow and Edgar Poe in poetry, even Bryant and the 
respectabilities in rhyme, and Emerson as essayist, there is no 
reason why New York should be a paltry imitation of Leip- 
sig, without the good faith of Tauchnitz, 

I dined with a litterateur well known in England to many 
people a year or two ago — ■ sprightly, loquacious, and well in- 
formed, if neither witty nor profound — now a Southern man 
with Southern proclivities, — as Americans say ; once a South- 
ern man with such strong anti-slavery convictions, that his ex- 
pression of them in an English quarterly had secured him the 
hostility of his own people — one of the emanations of Amer- 
ican literary life for which their own country finds no fitting 
receiver. As the best proof of his sincerity, he has just now 
abandoned his connection with one of the New York papers 
on the republican side, because he believed that the course of 
the journal was dictated by anti-Southern fanaticism. He is, 
in fact, persuaded tha't there will be a civil war, and that the 
South will have much of the right on its side in the contest. 



26 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

At his rooms were Mons. B , Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex- 
senator, Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men of a cer- 
tain clique in New York, The Americans complain, or as- 
sert, that we do not understand them, and I confess the re- 
proach, or statement, was felt to be well founded by myself at 
all event-J, Avhen I heard it declared and admitted that " if 
Mons. Belmont liad not gone to the Charleston Convention, 
the present crisis would never have occurred." 

March 22d. — A snow-storm worthy of Moscow or Riga 
flew through New York all day, depositing mon^ food for the 
mud. I paid a visit to Mr. Horace Greeley, and had a long 
conversation with him. He expressed great pleasure at the 
intelligence that I was going to visit the Southern States. 
" Be sure you examine the slave-pens. They will be afraid 
to refuse you, and you can tell the truth." As the capital 
and the South form the chief attractions at present, I am 
preparing to escape from " the divine calm " and snows of 
New York. 1 was recommcTided to visit many places before I 
left New York, principally hospitals and prisons. Sing-Sing, the 
state penitentiary, is " claimed," as the Americans say, to be 
the first " institution" of its kind in the world. Time presses, 
however, and Sing-Sing is a long way off. I am told a sys- 
tem of torture prevails there for hardened or obdiu'ate offend- 
ders — torture by dropping cold water on them, torture by 
thumbscrews, and the like — rather opposed to the views of 
prison philanthropists in modern days. 

March 'i'id. — It is announced positively that the authori- 
ties in Pensacola and Charleston have refused to allow any 
further supplies to be sent to Fort Pickens, the United States 
fleet in the Gulf, and to Fort Sumter. Everywhere the 
Southern leaders are forcing on a solution with decision and 
energy, whilst the Government a{)pears to be helplessly drift- 
ing with the current of events, having neither bow nor stern, 
neither keel nor deck, neither rudder, compass, sails, or steam. 
Mr. Seward has declined to receive or hold any intercourse 
with the three gentlemen called Southern Commissioners, who 
repaired to Washington accreditetl by the Government and 
Congress of the Seceding States now sitting at Montgomery, 
so that there is no channel of mediation or means of adjust- 
ment left open. I hear, indeed, that Government is secretly 
preparing what force it can to strengthen the garrison at 
Pickens, and to reinforce Sumter at any hazard ; but thsit its 
want of men, ships, and money compels it to temporize, lest 



AMERICAN JOURNALS. 27 

the Southern authorities siiould forestall their designs by a 
vigorous attack on the enfeebled forts. 

There is, in reality, very little done by New York to sup- 
port or encourage the Government in any decided policy, and 
the journals are inonj engaged now in abusing each otlier, and 
in small party aggressive warfare, than in the performance of 
the duties of a patriotic |)r('ss, whose mission at such a time is 
beyond all question the resignation of little differences for the 
sake of the whole country, and an entire devotion to its safety, 
honor, and integrity. But the New York people must have 
their intellecrtual drams every morning, and it matters little 
what the course of Government may be, so long as the aris- 
tocratic democrat can be amused by ridicule of the Gr(;at Rail 
S[)litt(!r, or a vivid portraiture of Mr. Horace Greeley's old 
coat, hat, breeches, and umbrella. The coarsest |)ersonalities 
are read with gusto, and attacks of a kind which would not 
have been admitted into the "Age" or "Satirist" in their 
worst days, form the staple leading articles of one or two of 
the most largely circulated journals in the city. " Slang " in 
its worst Americanized form is freely used in sensation head- 
ings and leaders, and a class of advertisements which are not 
allowed to appear in respectable English ])apers, have posses- 
sion of columns of the principal newspapers, few, in<leed, ex- 
cluding them. It is strange, too, to see in journals which 
profess to represent the civilization and intelligence of the 
most eidightened and highly educated people on the face of 
the eartli, advertisements of sorcerers, wizards, and fortune- 
tellers by the score — " wonderful clairvoyants," " the seventh 
child of a seventh child," " mesmeristie necromancers," and 
the like, vvdio can tell your thoughts as soon as you enter the 
room, can secure the art'ections you prize, give lucky numbers 
in lotteries, and make everybody's fbi'tunes but their own. 
Tli(!n there are the most imi)udent quack programmes — very 
doubtful " personals " addressed to " the youijg lady witii black 
hair and blue eyes, who got out of the omnibus at the corner 
of 7th Street" — appeals by "a lady about to be confined" 
to "any respectable person who is desirous of adopting a child:" 
all rather curious reading for a stranger, or for a family. 

It is not to be expected, of course, that New York is a very 
pure city, for more than London or Paris it is the sewer of 
nations. It is a city of luxury also — French and Italian 
cooks and milliners, German and Italian musicians, high prices, 
extravagant tastes and dressing, money readily made, a life in 



28 MY DIAPwY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

hotels, bav-rooras, heavy gambling, sporting, and prize-fight- 
ing flourish here, and combine to lower the standard of the 
bourgeoisie at all events. Wliehe wealth is the sole aristoc- 
racy, there is great danger of mistaking excess and profusion 
for elegance and good taste. To-day as I was going down 
Broadway, some dozen or more of the most over-dressed men 
I ever saw were pointed out to me as " sports ; " that is, men 
who lived by gambling-houses and betting on races ; and the 
class is so numerous that it has its own influence, particularly 
at elections, when the power of a hard-hitting prize-fighter 
with a following makes itself unmistakably felt. Young 
America essays to look like martial France in mufti, but the 
hat and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers en re- 
traite do not at all become the thin, tall, rather long-faced 
gentlemen one sees lounging about Broadway. It is true, in- 
deed, the type, though not French, is not English. The char- 
acteristics of the American are straight hair, keen, bright, 
penetrating eyes, and want of color in the cheeks. 

March 25th. — I had an invitation to meet several mem- 
bers of the New York press association at breakfast. Among 
the company were — Mr. Bayard Taylor, with whose exten- 
sive notes of travel his countrymen are familiar — a kind of 
enlarged Inglis, full of the genial spirit which makes travel- 
ling in company so agreeable, but he has come back as trav- 
ellers generally do, satisfied there is no country like his own 
— Prince Leeboo loved his own isle the best after all — Mr. 
Raytnond, of the " New York Times " (formerly Lieutenant- 
Governor of the State) ; Mr. Olmsted, the indefatigable, able, 
and earnest writer, wliora to describe simply as an Abolition- 
ist would be to confound with ignorant if zealous, unphilo- 
sophical, and impracticable men; Mr. Dana, of the "Tri- 
bune ; " Mr. Hiirlbut, of the " Times ; " the Editor of the 
" Courier des Etats Unis ; " Mr. Young, of the " Albion," 
which is the only English journal published in the States ; 
and others. There was a good deal of pleasant conversation, 
though every one differed with his neighbor, as a matter of 
course, as soon as he touched on politics. There was talk de 
omnibus rebus et qidbusdam aliis, such as Heenan and Sayers, 
Secession and Sumter, the press, politicians, New York life, 
and so on. The first topic occupied a larger place than it 
was entitled to, because in all likelihood the sporting editor of 
one of the papers who was present expressed, perli;ij)s, some 
justifiable feeling in reference to the refusal of the belt to the 



LITERARY BREAKFAST. 29 

American. All admitted the courag*; and great endurance of 
his antagonist, but seemed convinced that Heenan, if not the 
better man, was at least the victor in that particular contest. 
It would be strange to see the great tendency of Americans 
to institute comparisons with ancient and recognized standards, 
if it were not tliat they are adopting the natural mode of 
judging of their own capabilities. The nation is like a grow- 
ing lad who is constantly testirtg his powers in competition 
with his elders. He is in his youth and nonage, and he is 
calling down the lanes and alleys to all comers to look at his 
muscle, to run against or to fight him. It is a sign of youth, 
not a proof of weakness, though it does offend the old hands 
a 'id vex the veterans. 

Then one finds that Great Britain is often treated very 
much as an old Peninsula man may be by a set of young 
soldiers at a club. He is no doubt a very gallant fellow, and 
has done very fine things in his day, and he is listened to with 
respectful endurance, but there is a secret belief that he will 
never do anything very great again. 

One of the gentlemen present said that England might dis- 
pute the right of the United States Government to blockade 
the ports of her own States, to which she was entitled to 
access under treaty, and might urge that such a blockade was 
not justifiable ; but then, it was argued, that the President 
could open and shut ports as he pleased ; and tliat he might 
close the Southern ports by a proclamation in the nature of 
an Order of CounciL It was faken for granted that Great 
Britain would only act on sordid motives, but that the well 
known affection of France for tlie United States is to check 
the selfishness of her rival, and prevent a speedy recognition. 



CHAPTER V. 

Off to tlie railway station — Railway carriages — Philadolphia — 
Wasliington — Willard's Hotel — Mr. Seward — North and South 

— The " State Department " at Washington — President Lincoln 

— Dinner at Mr. Seward's. 

Aftf.u our pleasant breakfast came tliat necessity for 
activity wliich makes such meals disguised as mere light 
morning repasts take their revenge. I had to pack up, and 
I am bound to say the moral aid afforded me by the waiter, 
who stood with a sympathizing expression of face, and looked 
on as I wrestled with boots, books, and great coats, was of 
a most comprehensive character. At last I conquered, and 
at six o'clock p. m. I left the Clarendon, and was conveyed 
over the roughest and most execrable pavements through 
several miles of unsympathetic;, gloomy, dirty streets, and 
crowded thoroughfares, over jaw-wrenching street-railway 
tracks, to a large wooden shed covered with inscriptions re- 
specting routes and destinations on the bank of the river, 
which as far as the eye could see, was bordered by similar 
establishments, where my baggage was deposited in the mud. 
There were no porters, none of the recognized and established 
aids to locomotion to which we are accustomed in P^urope, 
but a imniber of amateurs divided the spoil, and carried it 
into the offices, whilst I was directed to struggle for my ticket 
in another little wooden box, from which I presently received 
the necessarj-^ document, full of the dreadful warnings and con- 
ditions, which railway companies inflict on the public in all 
free countries. 

The whole of my luggage, except a large bag, was taken 
charge of by a man at the New York side of the ferry, who 
"checked it through" to the capital — giving me a slip of 
brass with a number corres|)onding with a brass ticket for each 
piece. When the boat arrived at the stage at the other side 
of the Hudson, in my innocence I called for a porter to take 
my bag. The passengers were moving out of the capacious 



RAILWAY CARRIAGES. — PHILADELPHIA. 31 

ferry-boat in a steady stream, and the steam throat and bell of 
the engine were going whilst I was looking lor my porter ; 
but at hist a gentleman i)assing, said, " I gue-s y'ill remain 
here a considerable time before y'ill get any one to come tor 
that bag of yours ; " and taking tiie hint, I just got olf in time 
to stumble into a long box on wheels, with a double row of 
most uncomfortable seats, and a passage down the middle, 
where I fbinid a place beside Mr. Sanfbrd, the newly-ap- 
pointed United States Minister to Belgium, who was kind 
enough to take me under his charge to Washington. 

The night was closuig in very fast as tJie train started, but 
such glimjjses us I had of the continuous Hne of pretty- 
looking villages of wooden houses, two stories high, painted 
white, each with its Corinthian portico, gave a most favorable 
impression of the comfort and prosperity of the people. The 
rail passed through the main street of most of these hamlets 
and villages, and the bell of the engine was tolled to warn the 
inhabitants, who drew up on the sidewalks, and let us go by. 
Soon the white houses faded away into faint blurred marks 
on the black ground of the landscape, or twinkled with star- 
like lights, and there was nothing more to see. The passen- 
gers were crowded as close as they could pack, and as there 
was an immense iron stove in the centre of the car, the heat 
and stuffiness became most trjdng, although I had been 
undergoing the ordeal of the stove-heated New York houses 
for nearly a week. Once a minute, at least, the door at 
pither end of the carriage was opened, and then closed with 
a sharp, crashing noise, that jarred tlie nerves, and effectually 
prevented sleep. It genei'ally was done by a man whose sole 
object seemed to be to walk up the centre of the carriage in 
order to go out of the opposite door — occasionally it was 
the work of a newspaper boy, with a sheaf of journals and 
trashy illustrated papers under his arm. Now and then it 
was the conductor ; but the periodical visitor was a young 
gentleman with chain and rings, who bore a tray before him, 
and solicited orders for " gum drops," and " lemon drops," 
which, with tobacco, apples, and cakes, were consumed in 
great quantities by the passengers 

At ten o'clock, p. m., we crossed the rivei- by a ferry-boat to 
Philadelphia, and drove through the streets, stopping for sup- 
per a few moments at the La Pierre Hotel. To judge from 
the vast extent of the streets, of small, low, yet snug-looking 
houses, through which we passed, Philadelphia must contain 



82 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

in comfort the largest number of small householders of any 
city in the world. At the other terminus of the rail, to which 
we drove in a carriage, we procured for a small sum, a dollar 
I think, berths in a sleeping-c;u% Jm American institution of 
considerable merit. Unfortunately a party of prize-fighters 
had a mind to make themselves comfortable, and the result 
was anything but conducive to sleep. They had plenty of 
whiskey, and were full of song and fight, nor was it jiossible 
to escape their urgent solicitations '• to take a drink," by 
I'igning the soundest sleep. One of these, a big man, with 
:i broken nose, a mellow eye, and a very large display of 
rings, jewels, chains, and pins, was in very high spirits, and in- 
formed us he was '' Going to AVashington to get a foreign mis- 
sion from Bill Seward. He wouldn't take Paris, as he didn't 
cai'e much about French or Frenchmen ; but he'd just like to 
show John Bull how to do it ; or he'd take Japan if they were 
very pressing." Another told us he was " Going to the bosom 
of Uncle Abe " (meaning the President) — " that he knew 
him well in Kentucky years ago, and a higli-toned gentleman 
he was." Any attempts to persuade them to retire to rest 
made by the conductors were treated with sovereign contempt ; 
but at last whiskey asserted its supremacy, and having estab- 
lished the point that they " would not sleep unless they 

pleased," they slept and snored. 

At six, A. M., we were roused up by the arrival of the train 
at Washington, ha\ ing crossed great rivers and traversed cities 
without knowing it during the night. I looked out and saw a 
vast mass of white marble towering above us on the left, 
stretching out in colonnaded porticoes, and long flanks of win- 
dowed masonry, and surmounted by an unfinished cupola, from 
which scaffold and cranes raised their black arms. This was 
the Capitol. To the right was a cleared space of mud, sand, 
and fields, studded with wooden sheds and huts, beyond which, 
again, could be seen rudimentary streets of small red brick 
houses, and some church-spires above them. 

Emerging from the station, we found a vociferous crowd 
of blacks, who were the hackney-coachmen of the place ; but 
Mr. Sanford had his carriage in waiting, and drove me straight 
to Willard's Hotel where he consigned me to the landlord at 
the bar. Our route lay through Pennsylvania Avenue — a 
street of much breadth and length, lined with ;elanthus trees, 
each in a white-washed wooden sentry-box, and by most irreg- 
ularly-built houses in all kinds of material, from deal plank 



willard's hotel. 33 

to marble — of all heights, and every sort of trade. Few 
shop-windows were open, and the principal population con- 
sisted of blacks, who were moving about on domestic affairs. 
At one end of the long vista there is the Capitol ; and at the 
other, the Treasury buildings — a fine block in marble, with 
the usual American classical colonnades. 

Close to these rises the great pile of Willard's Hotel, now 
occupied by api)licants for office, and by the members of the 
newly-assembled Congress. It is a quadrangular mass of 
rooms, six stories high, and some hundred yards square ; and 
it probably contains at this moment more scheming, plotting, 
plaiuiing heads, more aching and joyful hearts, than any 
building of the same size ever held in the world. I was 
ushered into a bedroom which had just been vacated by 
some candidate — whether he succeeded or not I cannot tell, 
but if his testimonials spoke truth, he ought to have been 
selected at once for the highest office. The room was littered 
with printed copies of letters testifying that J. Smith, of Hart- 
ford, Conn., was about the ablest, honestest, cleverest, and 
best man the writers ever knew. U[) and down the long 
passages doors were opening and shutting for men with pa- 
pers bulging out of their pockets, who hun-ied as if for their 
life in and out, and the building almost shook with the tread 
of the candidature, which did not always in its present aspect 
justify the correctness of the original appellation. 

It was a remarkable sight, and difficult to understand un- 
less seen. From California, Texas, from the Indian Reserves, 
and the Mormon Territory, from Nebraska, as from the re- 
motest borders of Minnesota, from every portion of the vast 
territories of the Union, except from tiie Seceded States, the 
triumphant Republicans had winged their way to the prey. 

There w^ei-e crowds in the hall through which one could 
scarce make his way — the writing-room was crowded, and 
the rustle of pens rose to a little breeze — the smokii>g-roora, 
the bar, the barber's, the reception-room, the ladies' drawing- 
room — all were crowded. At present not less than 2,500 
people dine in the public room every day. On the kitchen 
floor there is a vast apartment, a hall without carpets or any 
furniture but plSin chairs and tables, which are ranged in 
close rows, at which flocks of people are feeding, or discours- 
ing, or from which they are flying away. The servants never 
cease shoving the chairs to and fro with a harsh screeching 
noise over the floor, so that one can scarce hear his neighbor 
2 * 



34 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

speak. If he did, he would probably hear as I did, at this 
very liotel, a m:ui order breakfast, " Black tea and toast, 
scrambled eggs, fresh spring shad, wild pigeon, pigs' leer, two 
robins on toast, oysters," and a quantity of breads and cakes 
of various denominations. The waste consequent on such 
orders is enormous — and Uie ability required to conduct 
these enormous establishments successfully is expressed by 
the common phrase in the States, " Brown is a clever man, 
but he can't manage an hotel." The tumult, the miscella- 
neous nature of the company — my friends tlie prize-fighters 
are already in possession of tiie doorway — the heated, muggy 
rooms, not to speak of the great abominableness of the pas- 
sages and halls, despite a most liberal provision of spittoons, 
conduce to render these institutions by no means agreeable to 
a European. Late in the day I succeeded in obtaining a 
sitting-room with a small bedroom attached, which made me 
somewhat more independent and comfortable — but you must 
pay highly for any de|)arture from the routine life of the 
natives. Ladies enjoy a handsome drawing-room, with piano, 
sofas, and easy cliairs, all to themselves. 

I dined at ]Mr. Santbrd's, wliere I was introduced to Mr. 
Seward, Secretary of State ; Mr. Truman Smith, an ex-sena- 
tor, much respected among the Republican party ; Mr. An- 
thony, a senator of the United States, a journalist, a very 
intelligent-looking man, with an Israelitish cast of face ; Col- 
onel Foster of the Illinois railway, of reputation in the States 
as a geologist ; and one or two more gentlemen. JNIr. Seward 
is a slight, middle-sized man, of feeble build, with the stoop 
contiacted tiom sedentary habits and application to the desk, 
and has a peculiar attitude when seated, which immediately 
attracts attention. A well-formed and large head is placed on 
a long slender neck, and projects over the chest in an argu- 
mentative kind of way, as if the keen eyes were seeking for 
an adversary ; the mouth is remarkably flexible, large but 
well-formed, the nose prominent and aquiline, the eyes secret, 
but penetrating, and lively with humor of some kind twin- 
kling about them ; the brow bold and broad, but not remarka- 
bly elevated; the white hair silvery and tine — a subtle, quick 
man, rejoicing in power, given to perorate ani^to oracular utter- 
ances, ibnd of badinage, bursting with the importance of state 
mysteries, and with the dignity of directing the foreign policy 
of the greatest country — as all Americans think — in the 
world. After dinner he told some stories of the pressure on 



THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 85 

the President for place, whicli very miieli amused the guests 
who knew the men, and talked freely and pleasantly of many 
thmgs — stating, however, few facts positively. In reference 
to an assertion in a New York paper, that orders had heen 
given to evacuate Sumter, " That," he said, " is a plain lie — 
no such orders have been given. We will give up nothing 
we have — abandon nothing that has been intrusted to us. If 
people would only read these statements by the light of the 
President's inaugural, they would not be deceived." He 
Avanted no extra session of Congress. " History tells us that 
kings who call extra parliaments lose their heads," and he 
informed the company lie had impressed the President with 
his historical parallels. 

All through this conversation his tone was that of a man 
very sanguine, and with a sujjreme contempt for those who 
thought there was anything serious in secession. " Why," 
said he, " I myself, my brothers, and sisters, have been all 
secessionists — we seceded from home when we were young, 
but we all went back to it sooner or later. These States will 
all come back in the same way." I doubt if he was ever in the 
South ; but he allirmed that the state of living and of society 
there was something like that in the State of New York sixty 
or seventy years ago. In the North all was life, enterprise, 
industry, mechanical skill. In the South there was depend- 
ence on black labor, and an idle exti'avagance whicli was mis- 
taken for elegant luxury — tumble-down old hackney-coaches, 
such as had not been seen north of the Potomac for half a 
century, harness never cleaned, ungroouKjd horses, worked at 
the mill one day and sent to town the next, badly furnished 
houses, bad cookery, imperfect education. No parallel could 
be drawn between them and the Northern States at all. " You 
are all very angry," he said, " about the Morrill tariff. Y^ou 
must, however, let us be best judges of our own affairs. If 
we jndge rightly, you have no right to complain ; if we judge 
wrongly, we shall soon be taught by tiie results, and shall 
correct our error. It is evident that if the Morrill tariff ful- 
fils expectations, and raises a revenue, British manufacturers 
sutllir nothing, and we suffer nothing, for the revenue is raised 
here, and trade is not injured. If the tariff' fails to create 
a revenue, we shall be driven to modify or repeal it." 

The company addressed him as " Governor," which led to 
Mr. Seward's mentioning that when he was in P^ngland he 
was induced to put his name down with that preffx in a hotel 



36 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

book, and caused a discussion among tlie waiters as to whether 
he was tlie " Governor " of a prison or of a public company. 
I hope the great people of England treated Mr. Seward with 
the attention due to his position, as he would assuredly feel 
and resent very much any slight on the part of those in high 
places. From what he said, however, I infer that he was 
satisfied with tlie reception he had met in London. Like 
most Americans who can afford it, he has been up the Nile. 
The weird old stream has great fascinations for the people of 
the Mississippi — as far at least as the first cataract. 

March 21th. — This morning, after breakfast, IMr. Sanford 
called, according to promise, and took me to the State depart- 
ment. It is a very humble — in fact, dingy — mansion, two 
stories high, and situated at the end of the magnificent line of 
colonnade in white marble, called the Ti-easury, which is here- 
after to do duty as the head-quarters of nearly all the public 
departments. People familiar with Downing Street, how- 
ever, cannot object to the dinginess of the bureaux in which 
the foreign and state affairs of the American Republic are 
transacted. A flight of steps leads to the hall-door, on which 
an announcement in writing is affixed, to indicate the days of 
reception for the various classes of persons who have business 
with the Secretary of State ; in the hall, on the right and lefl, 
are small rooms, with the names of the different officers on tlie 
doors — most of them persons of importance ; half-way in the 
hall a flight of stairs conducts us to a similar corridor, rather 
dark, with doors on each side opening into the bureaux of the 
chief clerks. All the appointments were very quiet, and one 
would see much more bustle in the passages of a Poor Law 
Board or a parish vestry. 

In a moderately sized, but very comfortable, apartment, 
surrounded with book-shelves, and ornamented with a few en- 
gravings, we found the Secretary of State seated at his table, 
and enjoying a cigar; he received me with great courtesy juid 
kindness, and after a time said he would take occasion to pre- 
sent me to the President, who was to give audience that day 
to the minister of the new kingdom of Italy, who had hitherto 
only represented the kingdom of Sardinia. 

I have already described Mr. Seward's personal appear- 
ance ; his son, to whom he introduced me, is the Assistant- 
Secretary of State, and is editor or proprietor of a journal in 
the State of New York, which has a reputation for ability and 
fairness. Mr. Frederick Seward is a slight delicate-looking 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 37 

man, with a high forehead, thoughtful brow, dark eyes, and 
amiable expression ; his manner is very placid and modest, 
and, if not reserved, he is by no means loquacious. As we 
were speaking, a carriage drove up to the door, and Mr. Sew- 
ard exclaimed to his father, with something like dismay in his 
voice, " Here comes the Chevalier in full uniform ! " — and in 
a few seconds in effect the Chevalier Bertinatti made his ap- 
pearance, in cocked hat, white gloves, diplomatic suit of blue 
and silver lace, sword, sash, and ribbon of the cross of Savoy. 
I thought there was a quiet smile on Mr. Seward's face as he 
saw his brilliant companion, who contrasted so strongly with 
the more than republican simplicity of his own attire. " Fred., 
do you take Mr. Russell round to the President's, whilst I go 
with the Chevalier. We will meet at the White House." 
AVe accordingly set out through a private door leading to the 
grounds, and within a few seconds entered the hall of the 
moderate mansion. White House, which has very much the 
air of a portion of a bank or j)ublic office, being provided with 
glass doors and plain heavy chairs and forms. The domestic 
who was in attendance was dressed like any ordinary citizen, 
and seemed perfectly indifferent to the high position of the 
great personage with whom he conversed, when Mr. Seward 
asked him, " Where is the President ? " Passing through one 
of the doors on the left, we entered a handsome spacious room, 
richly and rather gorgeously furnished, and rejoicing in a kind 
of "• demi-jour" which gave increased effect to the gilt chairs 
and ormolu ornaments. Mr. Seward and the Chevalier stood 
in the centre of the room, whilst his son and 1 remained a 
little on one side : " For," said Mr. Seward, " you are not to 
be supposed to be here." 

Soon afterwards there entered, with a shambling, loose, 
irregular, almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, consid- 
erably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long 
pendulous arms, terminating in hands of extraordinary dimen- 
sions, which, however, were far exceeded in proportion by his 
feet. He was dressed in an ill-fitting, wrinkled suit of black, 
which put one in mind of an undertaker's uniform at a funeral ; 
round his neck a rope of black silk was knotted in a large 
bulb, with flying ends projecting beyond the collar of his coat ; 
his turned-down shirt-collar disclosed a sinewy muscular yel- 
low neck, and above -that, nestling in a great black mass of 
hair, bristling and compact like a ruff of mourning pins, rose 
the strange quaint face and head, covered with its thatch of 



38 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

wild republican hair, of President Lincoln. The impression 
produced by the size of his extremities, and bj his flapping 
and wide projecting ears, may be removed by the appearance 
of kindhness, sagacity, and the awkward bonhommie of his 
face ; the mouth is absolutely prodigious ; the lips, straggling 
and extending almost from one line of black beard to the 
other, are only kept in order by two deep furrows from the 
nostril to the chin; the nose itself — a prominent organ — 
stands out from the fixce, with an inquiring, anxious air, as 
though it were sniffing for some good thing in the wind ; the 
eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an 
expression which almost amounts to tenderness ; and above 
them projects the shaggy brow, running into the small hard 
frontal space, the development of which can scarcely be esti- 
mated accurately, owing to the irregular flocks of thick hair 
carelessly brushed across it. One would say that, although 
the mouth was made to enjoy a joke, it could also utter the 
severest sentence which the head could dictate, but that Mr. 
Lincoln would be ever more willing to temper justice with 
mercy, and to enjoy what he considers the amenities of life, 
than to take a harsh view of men's nature and of the world, 
and to estimate things in an ascetic or puritan spirit. A per- 
son who met Mr. Lincoln in the street would not take him to 
be what — according to the usages of European society — is 
called a " gentleman ; " and, indeed, since I came to the United 
States, I haye heard more disparaging allusions made by 
Americans to him on that account than I could have expected 
among simple republicans, where all should be equals ; but, at 
the same time, it would not be possible for the most indifferent 
observer to pass him in the street without notice. 

As he advanced through the room, he evidently controlled 
I a desire to shake hands all round with everybody, and smiled 
good-huraoredly till he was suddenly brought up by the staid 
deportnient of Mr. Seward, and by the profound diplomatic 
bows of the Chevalier Bertinatti. Then, indeed, he suddenly 
jerked himself back, and stood in front of the two ministers, 
with his body slightly drooped forward, and his lumds behind 
his back, his knees touching, and his feet apart. Mr. Sew- 
ard formally presented the minister, whereupon the Presi- 
dent made a prodigiously violent demonstration of his body in 
a bow which had almost the effect of a smack in its rapidity 
and abruptness, and, recovering himself, proceeded to give his 
utmost attention, whilst the Chevaliei', with another bow, read 



THE "TIMES." — DINNER AT MR. SEWARD'S. 39 

from a paper a long address in presenting the royal letter 
accrediting him as ''minister resident;" and when he said thaf 
" the king desired to give, under your enlightened administra- 
tion, all possible strength and extent to those sentiments of 
frank sympathy which do not cease to be exhibited every 
moment between the two peoples, and whose origin dates 
back as far as the exertions wliich have presided over their 
common destiny as self-governing and free nations," the 
President gave another bow still more violent, as much as to 
accept the allusion. 

The minister forthwith handed his letter to the President, 
who gave it into the custody of Mr. Seward, and then, dipping 
his hand into his coat-pocket, Mr. Lincoln drew out a sheet 
of paper, from which he read his reply, the most remarkable 
part of which was his doctrine " that the United States were 
bound by duty not to interfere with the differences of foreign 
governments and countries." After some words of compli- 
ment, the President shook hands with the minister, who soon 
afterwards retired. Mr. Seward then took me by the hand 
and said — " Mr. President, allow me to present to j'ou Mr. 
Russell, of the London ' Times.' " On which Mr. Lincoln put 
out his hand in a very friendly manner, and said, "Mr. Rus- 
sell, I am very glad to make your acquaintance, and to see 
you in this country. The London ' Times ' is one of the 
greatest powers in the world, — in fact, I don't know anything 
which has much more power, — except perhaps the Missis- 
sippi. I am glad to know you as its minister." Conversation 
ensued for some minutes, which the President enlivened by 
two or three peculiar little sallies, and I left agreeably im- 
pressed with his shrewdness, humor, and natural sagacity. 

In the evening I dined with Mr. Seward, in company with 
his son, Ml". Seward, junior, Mr. Sanford, and a quaint, natural 
specimen of an American rustic lawyer, who was going to 
Brussels as Secretary of Legation. His chief, Mr. Sanford, 
did not appear altogether happy when introduced to his 
secretary, for he found that he had a very limited knowledge 
(if any) of French, and of other things which it is generally 
considered desirable that secretaries should know. 

Very naturally, conversation turned on politics. Although 
no man can foresee the nature of the crisis which is coming, nor 
the mode in which it is to be encountered, the faith of men like 
Mr. Sanford and Mr. Seward in the ultimate success of their 
principles, and in the integrity of the Republic, is very re- 



40 MY PIARY NOlMll AMD SOUTH. 

nmrkablo : ami ilu' boUlnoj;? of their lani^iiage in rorerenco to 
foreign powers almost amounts to arrogtinee and menaiv, if 
not to temerity. ^Ir. Seward asserted tliat the JMinisters of 
Ensi'land or oi' Franee had no right to make any allusion to the 
civil war whieh a[>j>eared innjunent ; and that the Southern 
Commissioners who had been sent abivad eouKl not be re- 
eeiveil by tlie Government of any foreign power, otiieially or 
otherwise, even to hand in ii document or to make a represen- 
tation, without incurring the risk of breaking otV ivlations 
with the Government of the United States. As ivgaiils tlij 
great object of public curiosity, the relief of Fort Sumter, Mr. 
Sewaixi maintains a profound silence, beyond the mere 
declaration, made witli a pleasant twinkle ot' tiie eye, that 
"the whole policy of the Ciovenunent, on that and other 
questions, is jnit forth in the President's inaugural, tVou\ which 
there will be no deviation. Turning to the inaugural messjvge, 
however, there is no such very certain indication, as Mr. Sew- 
ard pretends to discover, of the course to be pursued bv Mr. 
Lincoln and the cabinet. To an outside observer, like my- 
selt", it seems as if they were waiting for events to develop 
themselves, and rested their policy rather upon acts that hait 
occmred. than upon any detinite principle designed to contivl 
or ilirect the futuiv. 

I should here add that Mr. Sewanl spoke in high terms of 
the ability, dexterity, and personal qualities of Mr. Jetlerson 
Davis, and dt'dared his belief tliat but for him the Secession 
movemcju never iHMild have succeedtHl as tar as it has gi>ne, 
and would, ii\ all prtU>ability, indeed, have never taken place 
at all. Atter dinner cigJirs were inttvduceil, and a quiet little 
rubber of whist followed. The Secivtary is given to expatiate 
at large, and told us many aneiHlotes of foreign tnivel ; — it 
1 am not doing him injustice, I would Siiy liirther, that he 
rcmenibcrs his visit to England, and the attention he ivceived 
theiv, with peculiar sjuistaction. lie cannot be found fault 
with because he has tormed a most exalted notion of the 
superior intelligence, virtue, happiness, and pivsperity of his 
owj\ people, lie sj\id that it would not be proper tor him 
to hold any ivnnnunication with the Southern Commissionei's 
then in Washington ; which rather sur(u-ised nie, atler what 1 
had heaiil t"i\>in their tViend. Mr. Hanks. On returning to my 
hotel. I torn id a cai\l trom the Fresident, in\ iting me to dinner 
tlie tbllowing da v. 



CILVrTER VI. 

A stato ilinnor at the White House — Mrs. Lincoln — Tlie Cabinet 
i\linistei-s — A newspai>er correspondout — Good Fi-iday at NVash- 
ington. 

March 2St/i. — 1 was hoiiorod to-day by visits iVoni a jxivat 
nuinbor of INhMubors of Congress, journalists, and others. 
«)uils;in<>; from tlu> expressions of most of the "Washington 
people, they woiilil gladly see a Southern Cabinet installetl in 
(heir eity. Tlie cold shoulder is given to ^Ir. Lincoln, and 
Jill kinds of stories and jokes are circulated at his expense. 
l*eo[>le take particular pleasure in telling how he cnme tow- 
ards the seat of his Government disguised in n Scotch cap 
nnd cloak, whatever that may mean. 

In the evi'uing I repaired to the White House. The ser- 
vant who took my hat and coat was [lariicularly inquisitive as 
to my name and condition in lite ; and when he heard 1 was 
not a minister, he setMued inclined to question my right to be 
there at all : "for," said he, " there are none but menibers of 
the cabinet, and their wives and daughters, dining here to- 
day." Eventually he relaxed. — instructed me how to place 
my hat so that it would be exposed to no indignity, and in- 
formed me that 1 was about to participate in a prandial enjov- 
inent of no oriliuaiv character. There was no parade or dis- 
play, no announcement, — no gilded staircase, with its liveriid 
iieralds, transmitting and translating one's name from landing 
to landing. From the unpretending ante-chamber, a walk 
aci\>ss the lofty hall led us to the reception-room, which was 
the same as that m which the President held his interview 
yesterday. 

JNlrs. Lincoln was already seated to receive her guests. 
She is of the middle age and height, of a plumpness degen- 
erating to the eiHlH)iipoint natural to her years ; her features 
are plain, her nose and mouth of an ordinary type, and her 
manners and appe;irancc homely, stiffened, however, by the 
consciousness that her position requires her to be something 
more than plain Mrs. Lincoln, the wite oi' the Illinois lawyer ; 



42 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

she is profuse in the introduction of the word "sir" in every 
sentence, which is now almost an Americanism confined to 
certain classes, although it was once as common in England. 
Her dress I sliall not attempt to describe, though it was very 
gorgeous and highly colored. She handled a fan with much 
energy, displaying a round, well-proportioned arm, and was 
adorned with some simple jewelry. Mrs. Lincoln struck me 
as being desirous of making herself agreeable ; and I own I 
was agreeably disappointed, as the Secessionist ladies at 
Washington had been amusing themselves by anecdotes whicl 
could scarcely have been founded on fact. 

Several of the Ministers had already arrived ; by and by 
all had come, and the party only waited for General Scott, 
who seemed to be the representative man in Washington of 
the monarchical idea, and to absorb some of the feeling which 
is lavished on the pictures and memory, if not on the monu- 
ment, of Washington. Whilst we were waiting, Mr. Seward 
took me round, and introduced me to the Ministers, and to 
their wives and daughters, among the latter. Miss Chase, who 
is very attractive, agreeable, and s[)rightly. Her father, the 
Finance Minister, struck me as one of the most intelligent 
and distinguished persons in the whole assemblage, — tall, of 
a good presence, with a well-formed head, fine forehead, and 
a face indicating energy and power. There is a peculiar 
droop and motion of the lid of one eye, which seems to have 
suflTered from some injury, that detracts from the agreeable 
effect of his face ; but, on the whole, he is one who would not 
pass quite unnoticed in a European crowd of the same descrip- 
tion. 

In the whole assemblage thei'e was not a scrap of lace or 
a piece of ribbon, except the gorgeous epaulettes of an old 
naval officer who had served against us in the last war, and 
who represented some branch of tiie naval department. Nor 
were the Ministers by any means remarkable for their per- 
sonal appearance. 

Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, a slight man, above 
the middle height, with gray hair, deep-set keen gray eyes, 
and a thin mouth, gave me the idea of a person of ability and 
adroitness. His colleague, the Secretary of the Navy, a 
small man, with a great long gray beard and sjiectacles, did 
not look like one of much originality or ability ; but people 
who know Mr. Welles declare that he is possessed of admin- 
istrative power, although they admit that h.*. does not know 



AMERICAN MINISTERS. 43 

the stem from the stern of a ship, and are in doubt whether 
he ever saw the sea in his life. Mr. Smith, the Minister of 
the Interior, is a bright-eyed, smart (I use the word in the 
English sense) gentleman, with the reputation of being one 
of the most conservative members of the cabinet. Mr. Blair, 
the Postmaster- General, is a person of much greater in- 
fluence than his position would indicate. He has the repu- 
tation of being one of the most determined Republicans in the 
Ministry ; but he held peculiar notions with reference to the 
black and the white races, which, if carried out, would not by 
any means conduce to the comfort or happiness of free negroes 
in the United States. He is a tall, lean man, with a hard, 
Scotch, practical-looking head — an anvil for ideas to be 
hammered on. His eyes are small and deeply set, and have 
a rat-like expression ; and he speaks with caution, as though 
he weighed every word before he uttered it. The last of the 
Ministers is Mr. Bates, a stout, thick-set, common-looking 
man, with a lai-ge beard, who fills the office of Attorney- 
General. Some of tiie gentlemen were in evening dress ; 
others wore black frock-coats, which it seems, as in Turkey, 
are considered to be en regie at a Republican Ministerial 
dinner. 

In the conversation which occurred before dinner, I was 
amused to observe tlie manner in which Mr. Lincoln used 
the anecdotes for wliich he is famous. Where men bred in 
courts, accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would 
use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speecli, or give a 
shrug of the shoulders as the means of getting out of an em- 
barrassing position, Mr. Lincoln raises a laugh by some bold 
west-country anecdote, and moves off in the cloud of merriment 
produced by his joke. Thus, when Mr. Bates was remon- 
strating apparently against the appointment of some indiffer- 
ent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President 
interposed with, " Come now. Bates, he's not half as bad as 
you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good 
turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court 
one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road 
before me, and I had no horse. The judge overtook me in 
his wagon. ' Hollo, Lincoln ! Are you not going to the 
court-house ? Come in, and I'll give you a seat.' Well, I 
got in, and the judge. went on reading his papers. Presently 
the wagon struck a stump on one side of the road ; then it 
hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver 



44 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

was jerking from side to side in his seat ; so says I, ' Judge, I 
think your coachman has been taking a httle drop too much this 
morning.' ' Well I declare, Lincoln,' said he, ' I should not 
wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset me half a 
dozen of times since starting.' So, putting his head out of 
the window, he shouted, ' AVhy, you infernal scoundrel, you 
are drunk!' Upon which, pullijig u|) his horses, and turning 
round with great gravity, the coaclmian said, ' By gorra ! 
that's the iirst rightful decision you have given for the last 
twelvemonth.'" Whilst the company were laughing, the Presi- 
dent beat a quiet retreat from the neighborhood of the At- 
torney-General. 

It was at last announced that General Sc-ott was unable to 
be present, and that, although actually in the house, he had 
been compelled to retire from indisposition, and we moved 
in to the banqueting-hall. The first " state dinner," as it is 
called, of the President, was not remarkable for ostentation. 
No liveried servants, no Persic sjilendor of ancient plate, or 
chefs d'ceuvre of art, glittered round the board. Vases of 
flowers decorated the table, combined with dishes in what 
may be called the " Gallo- American " style, with wines which 
owed their parentage to France, and their rearing and edu- 
cation to the United States, which abounds in cunning nurses 
%r such productions. The conversation was suited to the 
state dinner of a cabinet at which women and strangers were 
present. I was seated next Mr. Bates, and the very agree- 
able and lively Secretary of the President, Mr. Hay, and 
except when there was an attentive silence caused by one of 
the President's stories, there was a Babel of small talk round 
the table, in which I was surprised to find a diversity of 
accent almost as great as if a number of foreigners had been 
speaking Einglish. I omitted the name of Mr. Hamlin, the 
Vice-President, as well as those of less remarkable people 
who were present ; but it would not be becoming to pass over 
a man distinguished for nothing so much as his persistent and 
unvarying adhesion to one political doctrine, which has made 
him, in combination with tlu^ belief in his honesty, the occu- 
pant of a post which leads to the Presidency, in event of any 
occurrence which may remove Mr. Lincoln. 

After dinner the ladies and gentlemen retired to the drawing- 
room, and the circle was increased by the addition of several 
politicians. I had an opportunity of conversing with some of 
the Ministers, if not with all, from time to time, and I was 



DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 45 

struck by the uniform tendency of their remarks in reference 
to tlie policy of Great Britain. They seeijied to tliink that 
England was bound by her anti-slavery antecedents to discour- 
age to the utmost any attempts of the South to establish its 
independence on a basis of slavery, and to assume that they 
were the representatives of an active war of emancipation. 
As the veteran Commodore Stewai't passed the chair of the 
young lady to whom 1 was speaking, she said, " I suppose, 
J\[r. Russell, you do not admire that officer ? " " On the con- 
trary," I said, " I think he is a very fine-looking old man." 
" I don't mean that," she replied ; " but you know he can't be 
very much lik(id by you, because he fought so gallantly against 
you in the last war, as you must know." I had not the cour- 
age to confess ignorance of the captain's antecedents. There 
is a delusion among more than tiie fair American who spoke 
to me, that we entertain in England the sort of feeling, morbid 
or wholesome as it may be, in reference to our reverses at 
New Orleans and elsewhere, that is attributed to Frenchmen 
respecting Waterloo. 

On returning to Willard's Hotel, I was accosted by a gentle- 
man who came out from the crowd in front of the office. 
" Sir," he said, " you have been dining with our President to- 
night." I bowed. "Was it an agreeable party?" said he. 
" What do you think of Mr. Lincoln ? " " May I ask to whom 

I have tiie pleasure of speaking?" "My name is Mr. -, 

and I am the correspondent of the New York ." " Then, 

sir," I re})lied, " it gives me satisfaction to tell you that I think 
a great deal of Mr. Lincoln, and that I am equally pleased 
with my dinner. I have the honor to bid you good evening." 
The same gentleman informed me afterwards that he had 
created the office of AVashington Correspondent to the New 
York papers. " At first," said he, " I merely wrote news, and 
no one cared much ; then I spiced it up, squibbed a little, and 
let off stories of ray own. Congressmen^ contradicted me, — 
issued cards, — said they were not facts. The public atten- 
tion was attracted, and I was told to go on ; and so the Wash- 
ington correspondence became a feature in all the New York 
papers by degrees." The hum and bustle in the hotel to-night 
were wonderful. All the office-seekers were in the passages, 
hungering after senators and representatives, and the ladies in 
any way related to influential people, had an entourage of cour- 
tiers sedulously paying their respects. Miss Ciiase, indeed, 
laughingly told me that she was pestered by applicants for her 



46 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

father's good offices, and by persons seeking introduction to 
her as a means of making demands on " Uncle Sam." 

As I was visiting a book-shop to-day, a pert, smibng young 
fellow, of slight figure and boyish appearance came up and 
introduced himself to me as an artist who had contributed to 
an illustrated London paper during the Prince of Wales's tour, 
and who had become acquainted with some of my friends ; 
and he requested permission to call on me, which I gave with- 
out difficulty or hesitation. He visited me this evening, poor 
lad ! and told me a sad story of his struggles, and of the de- 
pendence of his family on his effijrts, as a prelude to a request 
that I would allow him to go South when I was making the 
tour there, of which he had heard. He was under an engage- 
ment with the London paper, and had no doubt that if he was 
with me his sketches would all be received as illustrations of 
the places to which my letters were attracting public interest 
in England at the time. There was no reason why I should be 
averse to his travelling with me in the same train. He could 
certainly go if he pleased. At the same time I intimated that 
I was in no way to be connected with or responsible for him. 

March 29^A, Good Friday. — The religious observance 
of the day was not quite as strict as it would be in England. 
The Puritan aversion to ceremonials and formulary observ- 
ances has apparently affected the American world, even as 
far south as this. The people of color were in the streets 
dressed in their best. The first impression produced by fine 
bonnets, gay shawls, brightly-colored dresses, and silk brode- 
quins, on black faces, fiat figures, and feet to match, is singular ; 
but, in justice to the backs of many of the gaudily-dressed 
women, who, in little groups, were going to church or chapel, it 
must be admitted that this surprise oidy came upon one when 
he got a front view. The men generally affected black coats, 
silk or satin waistcoats, and parti-colored pantaloons. They 
carried Missal or Prayer-book, pocket-handkerchief, cane, or 
parasol, with infinite affectation of correctness. 

As I was looking out of the window, a very fine, tall young 
negro, dressed irreproachably, save as to hat and boots, passed 
by. "I wonder what he is ?" I exclaimed inquiringly to a 
gentleman who stood beside me. " Well," he said, " that fellow 
is not a free nigger ; he looks too respectable. I dare say you 
could get him for 1500 dollars, without his clothes. You 
know," continued he, "what our Minister said when he saw a 
nigger at some Court in Europe, and was asked what he 



STATE EIGHTS. 47 

thought of him : ' Well, I guess,' said he, ' if yon take off his 
fixings, he may be worth 1000 dollars down.' In the course 
of the day, Mr. Banks, a corpulent, enei-getic young Virginian, 
of strong Southern views, again called on me. As the friend 
of the Southern Commissioners he complained vehemently 
of the refusal of Mr. Seward to hold intercourse with him. 
" These fellows mean treachery, but we will balk them." In 
answer to a remark of mine, that tlie English Minister would 
certainly refuse to receive Commissioners from any part of the 
Queen's dominions which had seized upon the forts and arse- 
nals of the empire and menaced war, he replied : " The case is 
quite different. The Crown claims a right to govern the whole 
of your empire ; but the Austrian Government could not refuse 
to receive a deputation from Hungary for an adjustment of 
grievances ; nor could any State belonging to the German 
Diet attempt to claim sovereignty over another, because they 
were members of the same Confederation." I remarked " that 
his views of the obligations of each State of the Union were 
perfectly new to me, as a stranger ignorant of the controversies 
which distracted them. An Englishman had nothing to do 
with a Virginian and New Yorkist, or a South Carolinian — he 
scarcely knew anything of a Texan, or of an Arkansian ; we 
only were conversant with the United States as an entity ; and 
all our dealings were with citizens of the United States of 
North America." This, however, only provoked logically 
diffuse dissertations on the Articles of the Constitution, and on 
the spirit of the Federal Compact. 

Later in the day, I had the advantage of a conversation 
with Mr. Truman Smith, an old and respected representative 
in former days, who gave me a very different account of the 
matter ; and who maintained that by the Federal Compact 
each State had delegated irrevocably the essence of its sover- 
eignty to a Government to be established in perpetuity for the 
benetit of the whole body. The Slave States, seeing that the 
progi-ess of free ideas, and the material power of the North, 
were obtaining an influence which must be subversive of the 
supremacy they had so long exercised in the Federal Govern- 
ment for their own advantage, had developed this doctrine of 
States' Rights as a cloak to treason, preferring the material 
advantages to be gained by the extension of their system to 
the grand moral position which they would occupy as a por- 
tion of the United States in the face of all^he world. 

It is on such radical ditferences of ideas as these, that the 



48 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

whole of tlie quarrel, which is widening every clay, is founded. 
The Federal Compact, at the very outset, was written on a 
torn sheet of paper, and time has worn away the artificial 
cement by which it was kept together. The corner-stone of 
the Constitution had a crack in it, which tlie heat and fury of 
faction have widened into a fissure from top to bottom, never 
to be closed again. 

In the evening I had the pleasure of dining with an Amer- 
ican gentleman who has seen much of the world, travelled far 
and wide, who has I'ead much and beheld more, a scholar, a 
politician, after his way, a poet, and an ologist — one of those 
modern Grceculi, who is unlike his prototype in Juvenal only 
in this, that he is not hungry, and that he will not go to heaven 
if you order hira. 

Such men never do or can succeed in the United States ; 
they are far too refined, philosophical, and cosmopolitan. 
From what I see, success here may be obtained by refined 
men, if they are dishonest, never by philosophical men, unless 
they be corrupt — not by cosmopolitan men under any cir- 
cumstances whatever; for to have sympatliies with any people, 
or with any nation in the world, except his own, is to doom a 
statesman with the American public, unless it be in the form 
of an affectation of pity or good will, intended really as an 
offence to some allied people. At dinner there was the very 
largest naval officer I have ever seen in company, although I 
must own that our own service is not destitute of some good 
specimens, and I have seen an Austrian admiral at Pola, and 
the superintendent of the Arsenal at Tophaneh, who were not 
unfit to be marshals of France. This Lieutenant, named 
Nelson, was certainly greater in one sense than his British 
namesake, for he weighed 260 pounds. 

It may be here remarked, passim and obiter, that the Amer- 
icans are much more precise than ourselves in the enumera- 
tion of weights and matters of this kind. They speak of 
pieces of ailillery, for example, as being of so many pounds 
weight, and of so many inches long, where we would use cwts. 
and feet. With a people addicted to vertical rather than 
lateral extension in everything but politics and morals, precis- 
ion is a matter of importance. I was amused by a descrip- 
tion of some popular personage I saw in one of the papers the 
other day, which after an enumeration of many high mental 
and physical attrit»utes, ended thus, " In fact he is a remark- 
ably fine high-toned gentleman, and weighs 210 pounds." 



AN AilERICAN NELSON. 49 

The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and he inveighed 
fiercely, and even coarsely, against the members of hisv pro- 
fession who had thrown up their commissions. The superin- 
tendent of the Washington Navy Yard is supposed to be very 
little disposed in favor of this present Government ; in fact, 
Capt. Buchanan may be called a Secessionist, nevertheless, I 
am invited to the wedding of his daughter, in order to see the 
President give away the bride. Mr. Nelson says, Sumter 
and Pickens are to be reinforced. Charleston is to be reduced 
to order, and all traitors hanged, or he will know the reason 
why ; and, says he, " I have some weight in the country." In 
the evening, as we were going home, notwithstanding the 
cold, we saw a number of ladies sitting out on the door-steps, 
in white dresses. The streets were remarkably quiet and 
deserted ; all the colored population had been sent to bed long 
ago. The fir«-bell, as usual, made an alarm or two about 
midnight. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Barbers' shops — Place-hunting — The Navy Yard — Dinner at Lord 
Lyons' — Estimate of Washington among his countrymen — 
Washington's house and tomb — The Soutliern Commissioners — 
Dinner with the Southern Commissioners — Feeling towards 
England among the Southerners — Animosity between Nortli 
and South. 

March SOth. — Descended into the barber's shop off the 
hall of the hotel ; all the operators, men of color, mostly mu- 
lattoes, or yellow lads, good-looking, dressed in clean white 
jackets and aprons, were smart, quick, and attentive. Some 
seven or eight shaving chairs were occupied by gentlemen in- 
tent on early morning calls. Shaving is carried in all its ac- 
cessories to a high degree of publicity, if not of perfection, in 
America ; and as the poorest, or as I may call them without 
offence, the lowest orders in England have their easy shaving 
for a penny, so the highest, if there be any in America, submit 
themselves in public to the inexpensive operations of the negro 
barber. It must be admitted that the chairs are easy and well- 
arranged, the fingers nimble, sure, and light ; but the affecta- 
tion of French names, and the corruption of foreign languages, 
in which the hairdressers and barbers delight, are exceedingly 
amusing. On my way down a small street near the Capitol, 
I observed in a shop window, " Rowland's make easier paste," 
which I attribute to an imperfect view of the etymology of 
the great " Macassar ; " on another occasion I was asked to 
try Somebody's *' Curious Elison," which I am afraid was an 
attempt to adapt to a shaving paste, an address not at all suited 
to profane uses. It appears that the trade of barber is almost 
the birthright of the free negro or colored man in the United 
States. There is a striking exemplification of natural equality 
in the use of brushes, and the senator flops down in the seat, 
and has his noble nose seized by the same fingers which the 
moment before were occupied by the person and chin of an 
unmistakable rowdy. 

In the midst of the divine calm produced by hard hand 



PLACES WANTED. 51 

rubbing of my head, I was aroused by a stout gentleman who 
sat in a chair directly opposite. Through the door which 
opened into the hall of the hotel, one could see the great 
crowd passing to and fro, thronging the passage as though it 
had been the entrance to the Forum, or the " Salle de pas 
perdus." I had observed my friend's eye gazing fixedly 
through the opening on the outer world. Suddenly, with his 
face half-covered with lather, and a bib tucked under his chin, 
he got up from his seat exclaiming, "Senator! Senator! 
hallo ! " and made a dive into the passage — whether he re- 
ceived a stern rebuke, or became aware of his impropriety, I 
know not, but in an instant he came back again, and submitted 
quietly, till the work of the barber was completed. 

The great employment of four fifths of the people at Wil- 
lard's at present seems to be to hunt senators and congressmen 
through the lobbies. Every man is heavy with documents — 
those which he cannot carry in his pockets and hat, occupy 
his hands, or are thrust under his arms. In the hall are ad- 
vertisements announcing that certificates, and letters of testi- 
monial, and such documents, are printed with expedition and 
neatness. From paper collars, and cards of address to car- 
riages, and new suits of clothes, and long hotel bills, nothing 
is left untried or uninvigorated. The whole city is placarded 
with announcements of facilities for assaulting the powers that 
be, among which must not be forgotten the claims of the " ex- 
celsior card-writer," at Willard's, who prepares names, ad- 
dresses, styles, and titles, in superior penmanship. The men 
who have got places, having been elected by the people, must 
submit to the people, who think they have established a claim 
on them by their favors. The majority confer power, but they 
seem to foi'get that it is only the minority who can enjoy the 
first fruits of success. It is as if the whole constituency of 
Marylebone insisted on getting some oflSoe under the Crown 
the moment a member was returned to Parliament. There 
are men at Willard's who have come literally thousands of 
miles to seek for places which can only be theirs for four 
years, and who with true American facility have abandoned 
the calling and pursuits of a lifetime for this doubtful canvass ; 
and I was told of one gentleman, who having been informed 
that he could not get a judgeship, condescended to seek a place 
in the Post-Ofiice, and finally applied to Mr. Chase to be ap- 
pointed keeper of a " lighthouse," he was not particular where. 
In the forenoon I drove to the Washington Navy Yard, in 



52 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

company with Lieutenant Nelson and two friends. It is 
about two miles outside the city, situated on a fork of land 
projecting between a creek and the Potomac River, which is 
here thrt^e quarters of a mile broad. If the French had a 
Navy Yard at Paris it could scarcely be contended that Eng- 
lish, Russians, or Austrians would not have been justified in 
destroying it in case they got possession of the city by force 
of arms, after a pitched battle fought outside its gates. I con- 
fess I would not give much for Deptford and Woolwich if 
an American fleet succeeded in forcing its way up the 
Thames; but our American cousins, — a little more than kin 
and less than kind, who speak with pride of Paul Jones and 
of their exploits on the Lakes, — affect to regard the burning 
of the Washington Navy Yard by us, in the last war, as an 
unpardonable outrage on the law of nations, and an atrocious 
exercise of power. For all the good it did, for my own part, 
I think it were as well had it never happened, but no juris- 
consult will for a moment deny that it was a legitimate, even 
if extreme, exercise of a belligerent right in the case of an 
enemy who did not seek terms from the conqueror; and who, 
after battle lost, fled and abandoned the property of their state, 
which might be useful to them in war, to the power of the 
victor. Notwithstanding all the unreasonableness of the Amer- 
ican peo|)le in reference to their relations with foreign powers, 
it is deplorable such scenes should ever have been enacted 
between mjembers of the human family so closely allied by all 
that shall make them of the same household. 

The Navy Yard is surrounded by high brick walls ; in the 
gateway stood two sentries in dark blue tunics, yellow facings, 
with eagle buttons, brightly polished arms, and white Berlin 
gloves, wearing a cap something like a French kepi, all very 
clean and creditable. Inside are some few trophies of guns 
taken from us at Yorktown, and from the Mexicans in the 
land of Cortez. The interior inclosure is surrounded by red 
brick houses, and stores and magazines, picked out with white 
stone ; and two or three green glass-plots, fenced in by pillars 
and chains and bordered by trees, give an air of agreeable 
freshness to the place. Close to the river are the work- 
shops : of course there is smoke and noise of steam and 
machinery. In a modest office, surrounded by books, papers, 
drawings, and models, as well as by shell and shot and racks 
of arms of different descriptions, we found Capt. Dahlgren, 
the acting superintendent of the yard, and the inventor of the 



THE NAVY YARD. 53 

famous gun which bears his name, and is the favorite arma- 
ment of the American navy. By our own sailors they are 
irreverently termed "soda-water bottles," owinj^ to their 
shape. Capt. Dahlgren contends that guns capable of throw- 
ing the heaviest shot may be constructed of cast-iron, carefully 
prepared and moulded so that the greatest thickness of metal 
may be placed at the points of resistance, at the base of the 
gun, the muzzle and forward i^ortions being of very moderate 
thickness. 

All inventors, or even adapters of systems, must be earnest 
self-reliant persons, full of confidence, and, above all, impres- 
sive, or they will make little way in the conservative, status- 
lywo-Ioving world. Captain Dahlgren has certainly most of 
these characteristics, but he has to fight with his navy depart- 
ment, with the army, with boards and with commissioners, — 
in fact, with all sorts of obstructors. When I was going over 
the yard, he deplored the parsimony of the department, which 
refused to yield to his urgent entreaties for additional furnaces 
to cast guns. 

No large guns are cast at Washington. The foundries are 
only capable of turning out brass field-pieces and boat-guns. 
Capt. Dahlgren obligingly got one of the latter out to practise 
for us — a 12-pounder howitzer, which can be carried in a 
boat, run on land on its carriage, which is provided with 
wheels, and is so light that the gun can be drawn readily 
about by tiie crew. He made some good practice with shrap- 
nel at a target 1200 yards distant, firing so rapidly as to keep 
three shells in the air at the same time. Compared with our 
establishments, this dockyard is a mere toy, and but few 
hands are employed in it. One steam sloop, the " Pawnee," 
was under the shears, nearly ready for sea : the frame of 
another was under the building-shed. There are no facilities 
for making ii-on ships, or putting on plate-armor here. Every- 
thing was shown to us with the utmost frankness. The fuse 
of the Dahlgren shell is constructed on the vis inertice prin 
ciple, and is not unlike that of the Armstrong. 

On returning to the hotel, I found a magnificent bouquet of 
flowers, with a card attached to them, with Mrs. Lincoln's com- 
pliments, and another card announcing that she had a " recep- 
tion" at three o'clock. It was rather hite before I could get to 
the White House, .and there were only two or three ladies 
in the drawing-room when I ai-rived. I was informed after- 
wards that the attendance was very scanty. The Washington 



54 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ladies liave not yet made up their minds that Mrs. Lincoln is 
the fashion. The}^ miss their Southern friends, and constantly 
draw comparisons between them and the vulgar Yankee 
women and men wlio are now in power. I do not know 
enough to say whether the affectation of superiority be justi- 
fied ; but assuredly if New York be Yankee, there is nothing 
in which it does not far surpass this preposterous capital. 
The impression of homeliness produced by Mrs. Lincoln on 
first sight, is not diminished by closer acquaintance. Few 
women not to the manner born there are, wliose heads would 
not be disordered, and circulation disturbed, by a rapid transi- 
tion, almost instantaneous, from a condition of obscurity in a 
country town to be mistress of the White House. Her smiles 
and her frowns become a matter of consequence to the whole 
American world. As the wife of the country lawyer, or even 
of tlie congressman, her movements were of no consequence. 
The journals of Springfield would not have wasted a line upon 
them. Now, if she but drive down Pennsylvania Avenue, 
the electric wire thrills the news to every hamlet in the Union 
which has a newspaper ; and fortunate is the correspondent 
who, in a special despatch, can give authentic particulars of 
her destination and of her dress. The lady is surrounded by 
flattei'ers and intriguers, seeking for influence or such places 
as she can give. As Selden says, " Those who wish to set a 
house on fire begin with the thatch." 

March Z\st, Easter Sunday. — I dined with Lord Lyons 
and the members of the Legation ; the only stranger present 
being Senator Sumner. Politics were of course eschewed, 
for Mr. Sumner is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations of the Senate, and Lord Lyons is a very discreet 
Minister ; but still there crept in a word of Pickens and Sum- 
ter, and that was all. Mr. Fox, formerly of the United States 
Navy, and since that a master of a steamer in the commercial 
marine, who is related to Mr. Blair, has been sent on some 
mission to Fort Sumter, and has been allowed to visit Major 
Anderson by the authorities at Charleston ; but it is not 
known what was the object of his mission. Everywhere there 
is Secession resignation", in a military sense of the word. The 
Southern Commissioners declare they will soon retire to 
Montgomery, and that any attempt to reinforce or supply the 
forts will be a casus belli. There is the utmost anxiety to 
know what Virginia will do. General Scott belongs to the 
State, and it is feared he may be shaken, if the State goes out. 



THE SHRINE OF WASHINGTON. 55 

Already the authorities of Richmond have intimated they will 
not allow the foundry to furnish guns to the seaboard forts, 
such as Monroe and Norfollc in Virginia. This concession 
of an autonomy is really a recognition of States' Rights. 
For if a State can vote itself in or out of tlie Union, why can 
it not make war or peace, and accept or refuse the Fedei-al 
Government ? In fact, the Federal system is radically defec- 
tive against internal convulsion, however excellent it is or 
may be for purposes of external polity. I walked home with 
]\Ii'. Sumner to his rooms, and heard some of his views, which 
were not so sanguine as those of Mr.» Seward, and I thought 
I detected a desire to let the Southern States go out with 
their slavery, if they so desired it. Mr. Chase, by the way, 
expressed sentiments of the same kind more decidedly the 
other day. 

^pril \st. — On Easter Monday, after breakfast with Mr. 
Olmsted, I drove over to visit Senator Douglas. Originally 
engaged in some mechanical avocation, by his ability and elo- 
quenc? he has raised himself to the highest position in the 
State short of the Presidency, which might have been his but 
for the extraordinary success of his opponent in a fortuitous 
suffrage scramble. He is called the Little Giant, being tnodo 
bipedali staturu, but his head entitles him to some recognition 
of intellectual height. His sketch of the causes which have 
led to the present disruption of parties, and the hazard of 
civil war, was most vivid and able ; and for more than an hour 
he spoke with a vigor of thought and terseness of phrase 
which, even on such dreary and uninviting themes as squatter 
sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska question, interested a 
foreigner in the man and the subject. Although his sympa- 
thies seemed to go with the South on the question of slavery 
and territoi'ial extension, he condemned altogether the attempt 
to destroy the Union. 

April 2d. — The following day I started early, and per- 
formed my pilgrimage to " the shrine of St. Washington," at 
Mount Vernon, as a foreigner on board called the place. Mr. 
Bancroft has in his possession a letter of the General's mother, 
in which she expresses her gratification at his leaving the 
British army in a manner which implies that he had been 
either extravagant in his expenses or wild in his manner of 
living. But if he had any human frailties in after life, they 
neither offended the morality of his age, nor shocked the sus- 
ceptibility of his countrymen; and from the time that the 



56 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

much maligned and unfortunate Braddock gave scope to his 
ability, down to his retirement into private life, after a career 
of singula)' trials and extraordinary successes, his character 
acquired each day greater altitude, strength, and lustre. Had 
his work failed, had the Republic broken up into small anar- 
chical states, we should hear now little of Washington. But 
the principles of liberty founded in the original Constitution 
of the colonies themselves, and in no degree derived from or 
dependent on the Revolution, combined with the sufferings of 
the Old and the bounty of nature in the New World to carry 
t) an unprecedented degree the material prosperity, which 
Americans have mistaken for good government, and the phys- 
ical comforts which have made some States in the Union the 
nearest approach to Utopia. The Federal Government hith- 
erto " let the people alone," and they went on their way sing- 
ing and praising their Washington as the author of so much 
greatness and happiness. To doubt his superiority to any 
man of woman born, is to insult the American people. ^ They 
are not content with his being great — or even greater than 
the great : he must be greatest of all ; — " first in peace, and 
first in war." The rest of tlie world cannot find fault with 
the assertion, that he is " first in the hearts of his country- 
men." But he was not possessed of the highest military 
qualities, if we are to judge from most of the regular actions, 
in which the British had the best of it ; and the final blow, 
when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, was struck by the 
arm of France, by Rochambeau and the French fleet, rather 
than by Washington and his Americans. He had all the 
qualities for the work for which he was designed, and is fairly 
entitled to the position his countrymen have given him as the 
immortal czar of the United States. His pictures are visible 
everywhere — in the humblest inn, in the Minister's bureau, 
n the millionnaire's gallery. There are far more engravings 
of Washington in America than there are of Napoleon in 
France, and that is saying a good deal. 

What have we hei-e ? The steamer which has been pad- 
dling down the gentle current of the Potomac, here a mile 
and more in breadth, banked in by forest, through which can 
be seen homesteads and white farm-houses, in the midst of 
large clearings and corn-fields — has moved in towards a 
high bluff, covered with trees, on the summit of which is vis- 
ible the trace of some sort of building — a ruined summer- 
house, rustic temple — whatever it may be ; and the bell on 



WASHINGTON'S HOUSE. 57 

deck begins to toll solemnly, and some of the pilgrims uncover 
their heads for a moment. The boat stops at a rotten, tumble- 
down little pier, which leads to a waste of mud, and a path 
rudely cut through the wilderness of briers on the hill-side. 
The pilgrims, of whom there are some thirty or forty, of both 
sexes, mostly belonging to the lower classes of citizens, and 
comprising a few foreigners like myself, proceed to climb this 
steep, which seemed in a state of nature covered with prime- 
val forest, and tangled weeds and briers, till the plateau, on 
which stands the house of Washington and the domestic of- 
fices around it, is reached. It is an oblong wooden house, of 
two stories in height, with a colonnade towards the river face, 
and a small balcony on the top and on the level of the roof, 
over which rises a httle paltry gazebo. There are two win- 
dows, a glass door at one end of the oblong, and a wooden al- 
cove extending towards the slave quarters, which are very 
small sentry-box huts, that have been recently painted, and 
stand at right angles to the end of the house, with dog-houses 
and poultry-hutches attached to them. There is no attempt 
at neatness or order about the place ; though the exterior of 
the house is undergoing repair, the grass is unkempt, the 
shrubs untrimmed, — neglect, squalor, and chicken feathers 
have marked the lawn for their own. The house is in keep- 
ing, and threatens to fall to ruin. I entered the door, and 
found myself in a small hall, stained with tobacco juice. An 
iron railing ran aci'oss the entrance to the stairs. Here stood 
a man at a gate, who presented a book to the visitors, and 
pointed out the notice therein, that " no person is permitted 
to inscribe his name in this book who does not contribute to 
the Washington Fund, and that any name put down without 
money would be ei-ased." Notwithstanding the warning, some 
patriots succeeded in recording their names without any pecu- 
niary mulct, and others did so at a most reasonable rate. 
When I had contributed in a manner which must have repre- 
sented an immense amount of Washingtoniolatry, estimated 
by the standard of the day, I was informed I could not go 
up-stairs as the rooms above were closed to the public, and 
thus the most interesting portion of the house was shut from 
the strangers. The lower rooms presented nothing worthy of 
notice — some lumbering, dusty, decayed furniture ; a broken 
harpsichord, dust, cx»bwebs — no remnant of the man himself. 
But over the door of one room hung the key of the Bastille.* 
* Since borrowed, it is supposed, by Mr. Seward, and handed over 
3* 



68 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

The gardens, too, were tabooed ; but tlirongh the gate I could 
Fee a wilderness of neglected trees and shrubs, not unmingled 
with a suspicion ot" a present kitchen-ground. Let us pass to 
iho Totnl), wliich is some distance from tiie house, beneath the 
shade of some fine trees. It is a plain brick mausoleum, with 
a pointed arch, barred by an iron grating, through which the 
light penetrates a chamber or small room containing two sar- 
cophagi of stone. Over the arch, on a slab let into the brick, 
are the words : " Within this enclosure rest the remains of 
Gen. George Washington." The fallen leaves which had 
(hilted into the chamber rested thickly on the floor, and were 
j)iled up on the sarcophagi, and it was difficult to determine 
which was the hero's grave without the aid of an expert, but 
there was neither guide nor guardian on the spot. Some four 
or five gravestones, of various members of the family, stand in 
the ground outside the little mausoleum. The place was most 
depressing. One felt an^ry with a people whose lip service 
was accompanied by so little of actual respect. The owner 
of this pro[)erty, inherited from the " Pater Patriaj," has been 
abused in good set terms because he asked its value from the 
country which has been so very mindful of the services of his 
ancestor, and which is now erecting by slow stages the ovtM- 
grown Cleopatra's needle that is to be a Washington Monu- 
ment when it is finished. Mr. Everett has been lecturing, 
the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association has been working, and 
every one has been adjuring everybody else to give liberally ; 
but the result so lately achieved is by no means worthy of 
the object. Perhaps the Americans think it is enough to say 
— " Si monumentum qiiceris, circumspice." But, at all events, 
there is a St. Paul's round those words. 

On the return of the steamer I visited Fort Washington, 
which is situated on the left bank of the Potomac. I found 
everything in a state of neglect — gun-carriages rotten, shot 
piles rusty, furnaces tumbling to pieces. The place might be 
made strong enough on the river front, but the rear is weak, 
though there is low marshy land at the back. A company of 
regulars were on duty. The sentries took no precautions 
against surprise. T\v(^nty determined men, armed Avith re- 
volvers, could have taken the whole work ; and, for all the 

by him to Mr. Stanton. Lafayette gave it to Wusliington ; he also 
gave his uanie to the Fort which lias j)hiyed so conspicuous a part in 
the war for hburty — "La liberie iles deux mondes," might well sigh 
if he could see his work, and what it has led to. 



THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS. 59 

authorities knew, we might have had that number of Virgin- 
ians and the famouss Ben McCullough himself on board. Af- 
terwards, when I ventured to make a remark to General 
Scott as to the carelessness of the garrison, he said : " A few 
weeks ago it might have been taken by a bottle of whiskey. 
The whole garrison consisted of an old Irish pensioner." Now 
at this very moment Washington is full of rumors of desper- 
ate descents on the capital, and an attack on the President 
and his Cabinet. The long bridge across the Potomac into 
Virginia is gunrded, and the militia and volunteers of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia are to be called out to resist McCullough 
and his Richmond desperadoes. 

April 'od. — I had an interview with the Southern Commis- 
sioners to-day, at their hotel. For more than an hour I heard, 
from men of position and of different sections in the South, 
expi'essions wliich satisfied me the Union could never be re- 
stored, if they truly re{)resented the feelings and opinions of 
their fellow-citizens. They have the idea they are ministers 
of a foreign power treating with Yankeedom, and their indig- 
nation is moved by the refusal of Government to negotiate 
with them, armed as they are with full authority to arrange 
all questions arising out of an amicable separation — such as 
the adjustment of Fed(M-al claims for {)roperty, forts, stores, 
public works, debts, land purchases, and the like. One of the 
Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. 
Campbell, is their intermediary, and of course it is not known 
what hopes Mr. Seward has held out to him ; but there is 
some imputation of Punic faith against the Government on 
account of recent acts, and there is no doubt the Commissioners 
hear, as I do, that there are preparations at the Navy Yard 
and at New York to relieve Sumter, at any rate, with pro- 
visions, and that Pickens lias actually been reinforced by sea. 
In the evening I dined at the British Legation, and went over 
to the house of the Russian Minister, M. de Stoeckl, in the 
evening. The diplomatic body in Washington constitute a 
small and very agreeable society of their own, in which few 
Americans mingle except at the receptions and large evening 
assemblies. As the peo[)le now in power are novi homines, 
the wives and daughters of ministers and attaches are deprived 
of their friends who belonged to the old society in Washing- 
ton, and who have either gone off to Secession, or sympathize 
so deeply with the Southern States that it is scarcely becom- 
ing to hold very intimate relations with them in the face of 



60 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Government, From the house of M. de Stoeckl T went to a 
party at the residence of M. Tassara, the Spanish INIinister, 
where there was a crowd of diplomats, young and old. 
Diplomatists seldom or never talk politics, and so Pickens 
and Sumter were unheard of; but it is stated nevertheless 
that Virginia is on the eve of .secession, and will certainly go 
if the President attempts to use force in relieving and strength- 
ening the Federal forts. 

A/m'l Ath. — I had a long interview with Mr. Seward to- 
day at the State Department. He set forth at great length 
the helpless condition in which the President and the Cabinet 
found themselves when they began the conduct of public af- 
fairs at "Washington. The last cabinet had tampered with 
treason, and had contained traitors; a miserable imbecility 
had encouraged the lenders of the South to mature their plans, 
and had furnished them with the means of carrying out their 
design. One Minister had [)urposely sent away the navy of 
the United States to distant and scattered stations; another 
had purposely placed the arms, ordnance, and munitions of 
war in undue proportions in the Southern States, and had 
weakened the Federal Government so that they might easily 
fall into the hands of the traitors and enable them to secure the 
war materiel of tho Union ; a Minister had stolen the public 
funds for traitorous purposes — in every port, in every de- 
partment of the State, at home and abroad, on sea and by 
land, men were placed who were engaged in this deep conspir- 
acy — and when the voice of the people declared Mr. Lincoln 
President of the United States, they set to work as one man to 
destroy the Union under the most flimsy pretexts. The Pres- 
ident's duty was clearly detined by the Constitution. He had 
to guard what he had, and to regain, if possible, what he had 
lost. He would not consent to any dismemberment of the 
Union nor to tlu' abandonment of one iota of Federal property 
— nor could he do so if he desired. 

These and many more topics were presented to me to show 
that the Cabinet was not accountable for the temporizing pol- 
icy of inaction, which was forced upon them by circumstances, 
and that they would deal vigorously with the Secession move- 
ment — as vigorouslv as Jackson did with nullification in South 
Carolina, if they had the means. But what could they do 
when such a man as Twiggs surrendered his trust and sacrificed 
the troops to a crowd of Texans ; or when naval and military 
otficers resigned en masse, that they might accept service in the 



MR. SEWARD'S VIEWS. Gl 

rebel forces ? All this excitement would come right in a very 
short time — it was a brief madness, which would pass away 
when the people had opportunity for reflection. Meantime 
the danger was tliat foreign powers would be led to imagine 
the Federal Government was too weak to defend its rights, 
and that the attempt to destroy the Union and to set up a 
Southern Confederacy was successful. In other words, again, 
Mr. Seward fears that, in this transition state between their 
forced inaction and the coup by which they intend to strii^e 
down Secession, Great Britain may recognize the Government 
established at Montgomery, and is ready, if needs be, to 
threaten Great Britain with war as the consequence of such 
recognition. But he certainly assumed the existence of strong 
Union sentiments in many of the seceded States, as a basis for 
his remarks, and admitted tliat it would not become the spirit 
of the American Government, or of the Federal system, to use 
armed force in subjugating tlie Southern States against the 
will of the majority of the people. Therefore if the majority 
desire Secession, Mr. Seward would let them have it — but he 
cannot believe in anything so monstrous, for to him the Federal 
Government and Constitution, as interpreted by his party, are 
divine, heaven-boi-n. He is fond of repeating that the Fede- 
ral Government never yet sacrificed any man's life on account 
of his political opinions ; but if this struggle goes on, it will 
sacrifice thousands — tens of thousands, to the idea of a Fede- 
ral Union. '• Any attempt against us," he said, " would revolt 
the good men of the South, and arm all men in the North to 
defend their Government." 

But I had seen that day an assemblage of men doing a 
goose-step march forth dressed in blue tunics and gray 
trousers, shakoes and cross-belts, armed with musket and 
bayonet, cheering and hurrahing in the square before the War 
Department, who were, I am told, the District of Columbia 
volunteers and miHtia. They had indeed been visible in vari- 
ous forms parading, marching, and trumpeting about the town 
with a poor imitation of French pas and elan, but they did 
not, to the eye of a soldier, give any appearance of military 
efficiency, or to the eye of the anxious statesman any indica- 
tion of the animus pugnandi. Starved, washed-out creatures 
most of them, interpohited with Irish and flat-footed, stumpy 
Germans. It was matter for wonderment that the Foreign 
Minister of a nation which was in such imminent danger in 
Its very capital, and which, with its chief and his cabinet, was 



62 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

almost at the mercy of the enemy, should hold the language 
I was aware he had transmitted to the most powerful nations 
of Europe. Was it consciousness of the strength of a great 
people, who would be united by the first apprehension of 
foreign interference, or was it the peculiar emptiness of a 
bombast which is called Buncombe ? In all sincerity I think 
Mr. Seward meant it as it was written. 

When I arrived at the hotel, I found our young artist wait- 
ing for me, to entreat I would permit him to accompany me 
to the South. I had been annoyed by a paragraph which had 
appeared in several papers, to the eflfect that " The talented 
young artist, our gifted countryman, Mr. Deodore F. Moses, 
was about to accompany Mr. &c. &c., in his tour through the 
South." I had informed the young gentleman that I could 
not sanction such an announcement, whereupon he assured me 
he had not in any way authorized it, but having mentioned in- 
cidentally to a person connected with the press that he was 
going to travel southwards with me, the injudicious zeal of his 
friend had led him to think heVould do a service to the youth 
by making the most of the very trifling circumstance, 

I dined with Senator Douglas, where there was a large 
party, among whom were Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury ; Mr. Smith, Secretary of the Interior ; Mr. Forsyth, 
Southern Commissioner ; and several members of the Senate 
and Congress. Mrs. Douglas did the honors of her house 
with grace and charming good-nature. I observe a great ten- 
dency to abstract speculation and theorizing among Americans, 
and their after-dinner conversation is apt to become didactic 
and sententious. Few men speak better than Senator Doug- 
las ; his words are well chosen, the flow of his ideas even and 
constant, his intellect vigorous, and thoughts well cut, precise, 
and vigorous — he seems a man of great ambition, and he told 
me he is engaged in preparing a sort of Zollverein scheme for 
the North American continent, including Canada, which will 
fix j)ublic attention everywhere, and may lead to a settlement 
of the Northern and Southern controversies. For his mind, 
as for that of many Americans, the aristocratic idea embodied 
in Russia is very seductive ; and he dwelt with pleasure on 
the courtesies he had received at the court of the Czar, imply- 
ing that he had been treated differently in England, and per- 
haps France. And yet, had Mr. Douglas become President 
of the United States, his good-will towards Great Britain might 
have been invaluable, and surely it had been cheaply pur- 



THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS. 63 

chased by a little civility and attention to a distinguished citi- 
zen and statesman of the Republic. Our Galleos very often 
care for none of these things. 

April 5th. — Dined with the Southern Commissioners and 
a small party at Gautier's, a French restaurateur in Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue. The gentlemen present were, I need not say, 
all of one way of thinking; but as these leaves will see the 
liglit before the civil war is at an end, it is advisable not to 
give their names, for it would expose persons resident in 
Washington, who may not be suspected by the Government, 
to those marks of attention which they have not yet ceased to 
])ay to their political enemies. Although I confess that in ray 
judgment too much stress has been laid in England on the se- 
verity with which the Federal authorities have acted towards 
their political enemies, who were seeking their destruc- 
tion, it may be candidly admitted, that they have forfeited all 
claim to tiie lofty position they once occupied as a Government 
existing by moral force, and by tiie consent of tlie governed, 
to which Bastilles and lettres de cachet, arbitrary arrests, and 
doubtful, illegal, if not altogether unconstitutional, suspension 
of habeas corpus and of trial by jury were unknown. 

As Col. Pickett and Mr. Banks are notorious Secessionists, 
and Mr. Phillips has since gone South, after the arrest of his 
wife on account of her anti-federal tendencies, it may be permit- 
ted to mention that they were among the guests. I had pleasure 
in making the acquaintance of Governor Roman. Mr. Craw- 
ford, his brother commissioner, is a much younger man, of 
considerably greater energy and determination, but proba- 
bly of less judgment. The third commissioner, Mr. Forsyth, 
is fanatical in his opposition to any suggestions of compromise 
or reconstruction ; but, indeed, upon that point, there is little 
difference of opinion amongst any of the real adherents of the 
South. Mr, Lincoln tliey spoke of with contempt ; Mr. Sew- 
ard they evidently regarded as the ablest and most unscrupu- 
ious of their enemies ; but the tone in which they alluded to 
the whole of the Northern people indicated the clear convic- 
tion that trade, commerce, the pursuit of gain, manufacture, 
and the base mechanical arts, had so degraded the whole race, 
they would never attempt to strike a blow in fair light for 
what they prized so highly in theory and in words. Whether 
it be in consequence- of some secret influence which slavery 
has upon the minds of men, or that the aggression of the North 
upon their institutions has been of a nature to excite the deep- 



64 UY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

est animosity and most vindictive hate, certain it is there is a 
degree of sonnMhing lilve ferocity in the Southern mind tow- 
ards New En<ilaiid wiiich exceeds behef. I am persuaded 
that these feelings of cotiten)])t are extended towai'ds Enghmd. 
They beUeve tliat we, too, have iiad the canker of peace upon 
us. One evidence of tliis, according to Soutiiern men, is the 
abolition of duelling. This practice, according to them, is 
highly wholesome and meritoi-ious ; and, indeed, it may be 
admitted that in the state of society which is re|)orted to exist 
in the Southern States, it is a useful check on such men as i( 
restrained in our own islands in the last century. In th( 
course of conversation, one gentleman remarked that he con- 
sidered it disgracefid for any man to take money for the dis- 
honor of his wife or his daughter. " With us," he said, " there 
is but one mode of dealing known. The man Avho dares tam- 
per with the honor of a white woman, knows what he has to 
expect. We shoot him down like a dog, and no jury in the 
South will ever find any man guilty of murder for punishing 
such a scoundrel." An argument which can scarcely be allud- 
ed to was used by them, to show that these ot^ences in Slave 
States had not the excuse which might be adduced to diminish 
their gravity when they occurred in States where all the popu- 
lation were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other matters 
of a similar character, slavery is their sumnium honum of mo- 
rality, physical excellence, and social purity. I was inclined 
to question the correctness of tlie standard which they had set 
up, and to inquire whether the virtue which needed this mur- 
derous use of the j)istol and the dagger to defend it, was not 
open to some doubt ; but I found there was very little sym- 
2)athy with my views among the com[)any. 

The gentlemen at table asserted that the white men in 
the Slave States are physically superior to the men of the 
Free States ; and indulged in curious theories in morals and 
physics to which I was a stranger. Disbelief of anything a 
Northern man — that is, a Republican — can say, is a fixed 
principle in their minds. I could not help remarking, when 
the conversation turned on the duplicity of Mr. Seward, and 
the wickedness of the Federal Government in refusing to give 
the assurance Sumter would not be relieved by force of arms, 
that it must be of very little consequence what promises Mr. 
Seward made, as, according to them, not the least reliance was 
to be placed on his word. The notion that the Northern men 
are cowards is justified by instances in which congressmen 



THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS. 65 

have been insulted by Southern men without calling them out, 
and ]\Ir. Sumner's cjise was quoted as the type of the affairs 
of the kind between the two sides. 

I hat)pened to say that I always understood Mr. Sumner 
had been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly, and struck 
down before he could rise from his desk to defend himself; 
whereupon a warm refut«ition of that version of tlie story 
was given, and I was assured that Mr. Brooks, who was a 
very sligiit man, and much inferior in height to Mr. Sumticr, 
struck him a sliglit blow at first, and only inflicted the heavier 
strokes when irritated by the Senator's cowardly demeanor 
In reference to some remark made about the cavaliers and 
their connection with the South, I reminded tlie g(aitl(;man 
that, after all, the descendants of the Puritans were not to be 
despised in battle : and that the best gentry in England were 
worsted at last by the train-bands of London, and the " rab- 
bledom " of Cromwell's Independents. 

Mr., or Colonel, Pickett, is a tall good-looking man, of 
pleasant manners, and well-educated. But this gentleman 
was a professed buccaneer, a friend of Walker, the gray-eyed 
man of destiny — his comrade in his most dangerous razzie. 
He was a newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibuster ; and he 
now threw himself into the cause of the South with vehe- 
mence ; it was not difficult to imagine he saw in that cause 
the realization of the dreams of empire in the south of the 
Gulf, and of conquest in the islands of the sea, which have 
such a fascinating influen(;e o\er the imagination of a large 
])ortiou of tlu! American people. He referred to Walker's 
fate with much bitterness, and insinuated he was betrayed by 
the British officer who ought to have protected him. 

The acts of Mv. Floyd and Mr. Howell Cobb, which must 
be esteemed of doubtful morality, are here justified by the 
States' liigiits doctrine. If the States had a right to go out, 
they were (piite right in obtaining their quota of the national 
property which would not have been given to them by the 
Lincolnites. Therefore, their friends were not to be censured 
because they had sent arms and money to the South. 

Altogether the evening, notwithstanding the occasional 
warmth of the controversy, was exceedingly instructive ; one 
could understand from the vehemence and force of the speak- 
ers the full meaning of the [)hrase of " firing the Southern 
heart," so often (pioted as an illustration of the peculiar force 
of political passion to be brought to bear against the Repub- 



66 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

licans in the Secession contest. Mr. Forsyth, struck me as 
being the most astute, and perhaps most capable, of the gen- 
tlemen whose mission to Washington seems likely to be so 
abortive. His name is historical in America — his father 
filled high office, and his son has also exercised diplomatic 
function. Despotisms and Republics of the American model 
approach each other closely. In Turkey the Pasha unem- 
ployed sinks into insignificance, and the son of the Pasha 
deceased is literally nobody. Mr. Forsyth was not selected 
as Southern Commissioner on account of the political status 
acquired by his father ; but the position gained by his owr 
ability, as editor of " The Mobile Register," induced the 
Confederate authorities to select him for the post. It is quite 
possible to have made a mistake in such matters, but I am 
almost certain that the colored waiters who attended us at 
table looked as sour and discontented as could be, and seemed 
to give their service with a sort of protest. I am told that 
the tradespeople of Washington are strongly inclined to favor 
the Southern side. 

April Gth. — To-day I paid a second visit to General Scott, 
who received me very kindly, and made many inquiries 
respecting the events in the Crimea and the Indian mutiny 
and rebellion. He professed to have no ajjprehension for the 
safety of the cH}ntal ; but in reality there are only some 700 
or 800 regulars to protect it and the Navy Yard, and two field- 
batteries, commanded by an officer of very doubtful attach- 
ment to the' Union. The head of the Navy Yard is openly 
accused of treasonable sympathies. 

Mr. Seward has definitively refused to hold any intercourse 
whatever with tlie Southern Commissioners, and they will re- 
tire almost immediately from the capital. As matters look 
very threatening, I must go South and see with my own eyes 
how affairs stand there, before the two sections come to open 
rupture. Mr. Seward, the other day, in talking of the South, 
described them as being in every respect behind the age, with 
fashions, habits, level of thought, and modes of life, belonging 
to the worst part of the last century. But still he never has 
been there himself! The Southern men come up to the 
Northern cities and springs, but the Northerner rarely travels 
southwards. Indeed, I am informed, that if he were a well- 
known Abolitionist, it would not be safe for him to appear in a 
Southern city. I quite agree with my thoughtful and earnest 
friend, Olmsted, that the United States can never be con- 



OFFICE-SEEKERS. 67 

sidered as a free country till a man can speak as freely in 
Charleston as he can in New York or Boston. 

1 dined with Mr. Riggs, the banker, who had an agreeable 
pai'ty to meet me. Mr. Corcoran, his former partner, who 
was present, erected at his own cost, and pi-esented to the city, 
a fine building, to be used as an art-gallery and museum ; but 
as yet the arts which are to be found in Washington are politi- 
cal and feminine only. Mr. Corcoran has a private gallery of 
pictures, and a collection, in which is the much-praised Greek 
Slave of Hiram Powers. The gentry of Columbia are 
thoroughly Virginian in sentiment, and look rather south than 
north of the Potomac for political results. The President, I 
hear this evening, is alarmed lest Virginia should become hos- 
tile, and his policy, if he has any, is temporizing and timid. It 
is perfectly wonderful to hear people using the word " Gov- 
ernment " at all, as applied to the President and his cabinet — 
a body which has no power " according to the constitution " to 
save the country governed or itself from destruction. In fact, 
from the circumstances under which the constitution was 
framed, it was natural that tiie principal point kept in view 
should be the exhibition of a strong front to foreign powers, 
combined with the least possible amount of constriction on the 
internal relations of the different States. 

In the hotel the roar of office-seekers is unabated. Train 
after train adds to their numbers. They cumber the passages. 
The hall is crowded to such a degree that suffocation might 
describe the degree to which the pressure reaches, were it not 
that tobacco-smoke invigorates and sustains the constitution. 
As to the condition of the floor it is beyond description. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

New York Press — Rumors as to tlie Southerners — Visit to the Smith- 
sonian Institute — Pythons — Evcniiit^ at Mr. Seward's — Rough 
draft of official despatch to Lord J. Russell — Estimate of its effect 
in Europe — The attitude of Virginia. 

April 1th. — Raining all day, cold and wet. I am tired 
and weary of this perpetual jabber about Fort Sumter. 
Men here who know nothing at all of what is passing send 
letters to the New York papers, which are eagerly read by 
the people in Washington as soon as the journals reach the 
city, and then all these vague surmises are taken as gospel, 
and argued upon as if they were facts. The " Herald " keeps 
up the courage and spirit of its Southern friends by giving 
the most florid accounts of their prospects, and making con- 
tinual attacks on Mr. Lincoln and his government ; but the 
majority of the New York papers are inclined to resist Seces- 
sion and aid the Government. I dined with Lord Lyons in 
the evening, and met Mr. Sumner, Mr. Blackwell, the man- 
ager of tliQ Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, his Avife, and 
the members of the Legation. After dinner I visited M. de 
Stoeckl, the Russian Minister, and M. Tassara, the Minister 
of Spain, who had small receptions. There were few Ameri- 
cans present. As a rule, the diplomatic circle, which has, by- 
the-by, no particular centre, radii, or circumference, keeps its 
'members pretty much within itself. The great people here 
are mostly the representatives of the South American powers, 
who are on more intimate relations with the native families 
in Washington than are the transatlantic ministers. 

April 8th. — How it does rain ! Last night there were 
torrents of water in the streets literally a foot deep, ^t still 
runs in muddy whirling streams through the channels, and the 
rain is falling incessantly from a dull leaden sky. The air is 
warm and clammy. There are all kind of rumors abroad, 
and the barbers' shops shook with " shaves " tliis morning. 
Sumter, of course, was the main topic. Some reported that 
the President had promised the Southern Commissioners, 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. (69 

through their friend Mr. Campbell, Judge of the Supreme 
Court, not to use force in respect to Pickens or Sumter. I 
wrote to Mr. Seward, to ask him if he could enable me to 
make any definite statement on these important matters. 
The Southerners are alarmed at the accounts they have re- 
ceived of great activity and preparations in the Brooklyn and 
Boston navy yards, and declare that " treachery " is meant. 
I find myself quite incapable of comprehending their position. 
How can the United States Government be guilty of " treach- 
ery " toward subjects of States which are preparing to assert 
their independence, unless that Government has been guilty 
of falsehood or admitted the justice of the decision to which 
the States had arrived ? 

As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove over to the 
Smithsonian Institute, and was most kindly received by Pro- 
fessor Henry, who took me through the library and museum, 
and introduced me to Professor Baird, who is great in natural 
history, and moi'e particularly in ornithology. I promised 
the professors some skins of Himalayan pheasants, as an addi- 
tion to the collection. In the library we were presented to 
two very tine and lively rock snakes, or pythons, I believe, 
some six feet long or more, which moved about with much 
grace and agility, putting out their forked tongues and hissing 
sharply when seized by the hand or menaced with a stick. I 
was told that some persons doubted if serpents hissed ; I can 
answer for it that rock snakes do most audibly. They are 
not venomous, but their teeth are sharp and needle like. 
The eye is bright and glistening ; the red forked tongue, when 
protruded, has a rapid vibratory motion, as if it were moved 
by the muscles which produce the quivering hissing noise. I 
was much interested by Professor Henry's remarks on the 
large map of the continent of North America in his study : 
he pointed out the climatic conditions which determined the 
use, profits, and necessity of slave labor, and argued that the 
vast increase of population anticipated in the valley of the 
Mississippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness attached 
to it, were fallacious. He seems to be of opinion that most 
of the good land of America is already cultivated, and that 
the crops which it produces tend to exhaust it, so as to compel 
the cultivators eventually to let it go fallow or to use manure. 
The fact is, that the infiuence of the great mountain-chain in 
the west, which intercepts all the rain on the Pacific side, 
causes an immense extent of country between the eastern 



70 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

slope of the chain and the Mississippi, as well as the district 
west of IMinnesota, to be perfectly dry and uninhabitable ; 
and, as far as we know, it is as worthless as a moor, except 
for the pasturage of wild cattle and the like. 

On returning to my hotel, I found a note from Mr. Seward, 
asking me to visit him at nine o'clock. On going to his house, 
I was shown to the drawing-room, and found there only the 
Secretary of State, his son, and JNlrs. Seward. I made a 
parti carre for a friendly rubber of whist, and Mr. Seward, 
who was my partner, talked as he played, so that the score of 
the game was not favorable. But his talk was very interest- 
ing. " All the j)reparations of which you hear mean this only. 
The Government, linding the property of the State and Fed- 
eral forts neglected and left without protection, are deter- 
mined to take steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to 
protect them. But we are determined in doing so to make no 
aggression. The President's inaugural clearly shadows out 
our policy. AVe will not go beyond it — we have no inten- 
tion of doing so — nor will we withdraw from it." After a 
time Mr. Seward put down his cards, and told his son to go 
for a portfolio which he would find in a drawer of his table. 
Mrs. Seward lighted the drop light of the gas, and on her 
husband's return with the paper left the room. The Secre- 
tary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read 
slowly and with marked emphasis, a very long, strong, and 
able despatch, which he told me was to be read by Mr. Adams, 
the American Minister in London, to Lord John Russell. It 
struck me that tiie tone of the paper was hostile, that there 
was an undercurrent of menace through it, and that it con- 
tained insinualiuns that Great Britain would interfere to split 
up the Republic, if she could, and was pleased at the prospect 
of the dangers which threatened it. 

At all the sti-onger passages Mr. Seward raised his voice, 
and made a pause at their conclusion as if to challenge remark 
or approval. At length I could not help saying, that the de- 
S[)atch would, no doubt, have an excellent etiect when it came 
to light in Congress, and that the Americans would think 
highly of the writer; but I ventured to express an opinion 
that it would not be quite so acceptable to the Government 
and people of Great Britain. This ]Mr. Seward, as an Amei'- 
ican statesman, had a right to make but a secondary consider- 
ation. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political 
heresy which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign 



MR. SEWARD AND SECESSION. 71 

countries alluding to it, Mr. Seward thinks he can establish 
the supreniaey of his own Government, and at the same time 
gratify the vanity of the people. Even war with us may not 
be out of the list of those means which would be available for 
re-fusing the broken union into a mass once more. However, 
the Secretary is quite confident in what he calls " reaction." 
"'When the Southern States," he says, " see that we mean 
them no wrong — that we intend no violence to persons, rights, 
or tilings — that the Federal Government seeks only to fulfil 
obligations imposed on it in respect to the national property, 
they will see their mistake, and one after another they will 
come back into the union." Mr. Seward anticipates this [)ro- 
cess will at once begin, and that Secession will all be (lone 
and over in three months — at least, so he says. It was after 
midnight ere our conversation was over, much of which of 
course I cainiot mention in these j)ages. 

April [)(h. — A storm of rain, thunder, and lightning. The 
streets are converted into watercourses. From the country 
we hear of bridges washed away by inundations, and i-oads 
rendered im[)assable. Accounts from the Soutii are gloomy, 
but the tiirba Jieini in Willard's are as happy as ever, at least 
as noisy and as greedy of place. By-the-by, I observe that 
my prize-fighting friend of the battered nose has been re- 
warded for his exertions at last. lie has been standing drinks 
all romul till he is not able to stand himself, and he has ex- 
pressed his determination never to forget all the people in the 
passage. I dined at the Legation in the evening, wliere there 
was a small i^arty, and returned to the hotel in torrents of 
niin. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Dinner at General Scott's — Anecdotes of General Scott's Early Life — 
The Startling Despatch — Insecurity of the Capital. 

April lOfh. — To-day I devoted to packing up such things 
as I did not require, and sending them to New York. I re- 
ceived a characteristic note from General Scott, asking rae to 
dine with him to-morrow, and apologizing for the shortness 
of his invitation, wliich arose from his only having just heard 
that I was about to leave so soon for the South. The Gen- 
eral is much admired by his countrymen, though they do not 
S[)are some " amiable weaknesses ; " but, in my mind, he can 
only be accused of a little vanity, which is often found in 
characters of the highest standard. He likes to display his 
reading, and is troubled with a desire to indulge in tine writ- 
ing. Some time ago he wrote a long letter to the " National 
Intelligencer," in which he quoted Sliakespeare and Paley to 
prove that Pi'esident Buchanan ought to have garrisoned the 
forts at Cliarleston and Pensacola, as he advised him to do ; 
and he has been the victim of poetic aspirations. The Gen- 
eral's dinner hour was early ; and when I arrived at his mod- 
est lodgings, which, however, were in the house of a famous 
Fi-ench cook, I found a troop of mounted volunteers of the 
disti'iet, parading up and down the street. They were not 
bad of their class, and the horses, thougli light, were active, 
hartly, and spirited ; but the men put on their uniforms bad- 
ly, wore long hair, their coats and buttons and boots were 
inibrushed, and the horses' coats and accoutrements bore evi- 
dence of neglect. The General, who wore an undress blue 
frock-coat, with <>agle-covered brass buttons, and velvet collar 
and cuffs, was with Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates, the Attorney- 
General, and received me very courteously. Pie was inter- 
rupted by cheering from the soldiers in the street, and by 
clamors for " General Scott." He moves with difficulty, 
owing to a fall from his horse, and from the pressure of in- 
creasing years ; and he evidently would not have gone out 



DINNER AT GENERAL SCOTT'S. 73 

if lie could have avoided it. But there is no privacy for pub- 
lic men in America. 

But the General went to them, and addressed a few words 
to his audience in the usual style about "rallying round," and 
" dying gloi"iously," and " old flag of our country," and all 
that kind of thing ; after whicli, (he band struck up " Yanke« 
Doodle." Mr. Seward called out, " General, make them play 
the ' Star-Spangled Banner,' and ' Hail Columbia.'" And so 
I was treated to the strains of the old bacchanalian chant, 
"When Bibo," &c., which the Americans have impressed to 
do duty as a national air. Tluiu came an attempt to play 
" God save the Queen," which I duly appreciated as a com- 
])liinent ; and then followed dinner, which did credit to the 
cook, and wine, which was most excellent, from France, 
Spain, and Madeira. The only addition to our party was 
Major Cullum, aide-de-camp to General Scott, an United 
States' engineer, educated at West Point. The General un- 
derwent a little badinage about the phrase " a hasty plate of 
soup," which he used in one of his despatches during the 
Mexican War, and he appealed to me to decide wliether it 
was so erroneous or I'idiculous as Mr. Seward insisted. I 
said I was not a judge, but certainly similar liberal usage of 
a well-known figure of prosody might be found to justify the 
phrase. The only attendants at table wei'e the General's 
English valet and a colored servant ; and the table apjjaratus 
whicii bore such good things was simple and unpretending. 
Of (!Oin'se the conversation was of a general character, and 
the General, evidently picking out his words with great pre- 
cision, took the lead in it, telling anecdotes of great length, 
graced now and then with episodes, and fortified by such 
episodes as — " Bear with me, dear sir, for a while, that I 
may here diverge from the main current of my story, anj 
proceed to mention a curious " &;c., and so on. 

To me his convei'sation was very interesting, particularly 
that portion which referred to his part in the last war, where 
he was wounded and taken prisoner. He gave an account of 
the Battle of Chippewa, which was, he said, fought on true 
scientific pi'inciples ; and in the ignorance common to most 
Englishmen of reverses to their arms, I was injudicious 
enough, when the battle was at its height, and whole masses 
of men were moving in battalions and columns over the table, 
to ask how many were engaged. The General made the 
most of his side : " We had, sir, twenty-one hundred and scv- 
4 



74 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

enty-five men in the field." He told us how. when the Brit- 
ish men-of-war i)rovoked general indignation in Virginia by 
searching American vessels for deserters in the Chesapeake, 
the State of Virginia organized a volunteer force to guard the 
shores, and, above all things, to prevent the country people 
sending down supplies to the vessels, in pursuance of the 
orders of the Legislature and Governor. Young Scott, then 
reading for the bar, became corporal of a troop of these pa- 
trols. One night, as they were on duty by the banks of the 
Potomac, they heard a boat with muffled oars coming rapidly 
down the river, and soon saw her approaching quite close to 
the shore under cover of the trees. When she was abreast 
of the troopers, Scott challenged " What boat is that ? " 

" It's His Majesty's ship ' Leopard,' and Avhat the d is 

that to you ? Give way, my lads ! " "I at once called on 
him to surrender," said the General, " and giving the word to 
charge, we dashed into the water. Fortunately, it was not 
deep, and the midshipman in charge, taken by surprise by a 
superior force, did not attempt to resist us.' We found the 
boat manned by four sailors, and filled with vegetables and 
other supplies, and took possession of it ; and 1 believe it is 
the first instance of a man-of-war's boat being captured by 
cavalry. The Legislature of Virginia, however, did not ap- 
prove of the capture, and the officer was given up accord- 
ingly- 

" Many years afterwards, when I visited Europe, I hap- 
pened to be dining at the hospitable mansion of Lord Holland, 
and observed during the banquet that a gentleman at table 
was scrutinizing my countenance in a manner indicative of 
some special curiosity. Several times, as my eye wandered 
in his direction, I perceived that he had been continuing his 
investigation^, and at length I rebuked him by a continuous 
glance. After dinner, this gentleman came round to me and 
said, ' Genend Scott, I hope you will pardon my rudeness in 
staring at you, but the fact is that you bear a most remarkable 
resemblance to a great overgrown, clumsy country fellow of 
the same name, wlio took me prisoner in my boat when I was 
a midshipman in the " Chesapeake," at the head of a body of 
mounted men. He was, I remember quite well, Corporal 
Scott.' 'That Corporal Scott, sir, and the individual who 
addresses you, are identical one with the other.' The officer 
whose acquaintance I thus so auspiciously I'euewed, was 
Captain Fox, a relation of Lord Holland, and a post-captain 
in the British navy." 



CONVERSATION AND ANECDOTES- 75 

Whilst he was speaking, a telegraphic despatch was brought 
in, which the General pei'used with evident uneasiness. He 
apologized to me for reading it by saying the despatch was 
from the President on. Cabinet business, and then handed it 
across the table to Mr. Seward. The Secretary read it, and 
became a little agitated, and raised his eyes inquiringly to the 
General's face, who only shook his head. Then the paper was 
given to Mi\ Bates, who read it, and gave a grunt, as it were, 
of surprise. The General took back the paper, read it twice 
over, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. " You 
had better not put it there, General," interjjosed Mr. Seward ; 
" it will be getting lost, or in some other hands." And so the 
General seemed to think, for he immediately threw it into the 
fire, before which certain bottles of claret were gently mel- 
lowing. 

The communication was evidently of a very unpleasant 
character. In order to give the Ministers opportunity for a 
conference, I asked Major Cullum to accompany me into the 
garden, and lighted a cigar. As I was walking about in the 
twilight, 1 observed two figures at the end of the little enclo- 
sure, standing as if in concealment close to the wall. Major 
Cullum said, " The men you see ai'e sentries I have thought it 
expedient to place there for the protection of the General. 
The villains might assassinate him, and would do it in a mo- 
ment if they could. He would not hear of a guard, nor any 
thing of the sort, so, without his knowing it, I have sentries 
posted all round the house all night. This was a curious 
state of things for the commander of the American army, in 
the midst of a crowded city, the capital of the free and enlight- 
ened Republic, to be placed in ! On our return to the sitting- 
room, the conversation was continued some hour or so longer. 
I I'ctired with Mr. Seward in his carriage. As we were 
going up Pennsylvania Avenue — almost lifeless at that time 
— 1 asked Mr. Seward whether he felt quite secure against 
any irruption from Virginia, as it was reported that one Ben 
McCullough, the famous Texan desperado, had assembled 
500 men at Richmond for some daring enterprise : some said 
to carry off the President, cabinet, and all. He replied that, 
although the capital was almost defenceless, it must be remem- 
bered that the bold bad men who were their enemies were 
equally unprepared for active measures of aggi'ession. 



CHAPTER X. 

Preparation for war at Charlestown — My own departure for the South- 
ern States — Arrival at Baltimore — Commencement of hostilities 
at Fort Sumter — Bombardment of the Fort — General feeling as 
to North and South — Slavery — First impressions of the City of 
Baltimore — Departure b}' steamer. 

April 12th. — This morning I received an intimation that 
the Government had resolved on taking decisive steps which 
would lead to a development of events in the South and test 
the sincerity of Secession. The Confederate general at 
Charleston, Beauregard, has sent to the Federal officer in 
command at Sumter, Major Anderson, to say, that all commu- 
nication between his garrison and the city must cease ; and, 
at the same time, or probably before it, the Government at 
Washington informed the Confederate authorities that they 
intended to forward supplies to Major Anderson, peaceably if 
permitted, but at all hazards to send them. The Charleston 
people are manning the batteries they have erected against 
Sumter, have fired on a vessel under the United States flag, 
endeavoring to communicate with the fort, and have called out 
and organized a large force in the islands opposite the place 
and in the city of Charleston. 

I resolved, therefore, to start for the Southern States to-day, 
proceeding by Baltimore to Norfolk instead of going by Rich- 
mond, which was cut off by the floods. Before leaving, I 
visited Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward, the French and Russian 
Ministers ; left cards on the President, Mrs. Lincoln, Genei-al 
Scott, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Sumner, and others. There was no 
appearance of any excitement in Washington, but Lord Lyons 
mentioned, as an unusual circumstance, that he had received 
no telegraphic communication from Mr. Bunch, the British 
Consul at Charleston. Some ladies said to me that when I 
came back I would fi^nd some nice people at Washington, and 
that the rail-splitter, his wife, the Sewards, and all the rest of 
them, would l)e driven to the place where they ought to be : 
" Varina Davis is a lady, at all events, not like the other. 



ARRIVAL AT BALTIMORE. 77 

We can't put up with such people as these ! " A naval officer 
whom I met, told me, " if the Government are really goinj:; 
to try force at Charleston, you'll see they'll be beaten, and 
we'll have a war between tlie gentlemen and the Yankee row- 
dies ; if they attempt violence, you know how that will end." 
The Government are so uneasy that they have put soldiers 
into the 'Capitol, and are preparing it for defence. 

At 6 p. M. I drove to the Baltimore station in a storm of 
rain, accompanied by Mr. Warre, of the British Legation. 
In the train there was a crowd of people, many of them dis- 
appointed place-hunters, and much discussion took place re- 
specting the propriety of giving supplies to Sumter by force, 
the weight of opinion being against the propriety of such a 
step. The tone in which the President and his cabinet were 
spoken of was very disrespectful. One big man, in a fur coat, 
who was sitting near me, said, " Well, darn me if I wouldn't 
draw a bead on Old Abe, Seward — aye, or General Scott 
himself, though I've got a perty good thing out of them, if 
they due try to use their soldiers and sailors to beat down 
States' Rights. If they want to go they've a right to go." 
To which many said, " That's so ! That's true ! " 

When we arrived at Baltimore, at 8 P. m., the streets were 
deep in water. A coachman, seeing I was a stranger, asked 
me two dollars, or 8s. 4d., to drive to the Eutaw House, a 
quarter of a mile distance ; but I was not surprised, as I had 
paid three-and-a-half and four dollars to go to dinner and re- 
turn to the hotel in Washington. On my arrival, the land- 
lord, no less a person than a major or colonel, took me aside, 
and asked me if I had heard the news. "No, what is it?" 
*' The President of the Telegraph Company tells me he has 
received a message from his clerk at Charleston that the bat- 
teries have opened fire on Sumter because the Goverinnent 
has sent down a fleet to force in supplies." The news had, 
however, spread. The hall and bar of the hotel were full, 
and I was asked by many people whom I had never seen in 
my life, what my opinions were as to the authenticity of the 
rumor. There was nothing surprising in the fact that the 
Charleston people had resented any attempt to reinforce the 
forts, as I was aware, from the language of the Southern 
Commissioners, that they would resist any such attempt to the 
last, and make it a casus and causa belli. 

April \A:th. — The Eutaw House is not a very good speci- 
men of an American hotel, but the landlord does his best tc 



78 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

make his guests comfortable, when he hkes them. The 
American landlord is a despot who regulates his dominions by 
ukases affixed to the walls, by certain state departments called 
" offices " and " bars," and who generally is represented, whilst 
he is away on some military, political, or commercial under- 
taking, by a lieutenant ; the deputy being, if possible, a 
greater man than the chief. It requires so much capital to 
establish a large hotel, that there is little fear of external com- 
petition in the towns. And Americans are so gregarious that 
they will not patronize small establishments. 

I was the more complimented by the landlord's attention 
this morning when he came to the I'oom, and in much excite- 
ment informed me the news of Fort Sumter being bombarded 
by the Charleston batteries was confirmed, "And now," said 
he, " there's no saying where it will all end." 

After breakfast I was visited by some gentlemen of Balti- 
more, who wex'e highly delighted with the news, and I learned 
from them there was a pi'obability of their State joining those 
which had seceded. The whole feeling of the landed and 
respectable classes is with the South. The dislike to the 
Federal Government at Washington is largely spiced with 
personal ridicule and contempt of Mr. Lincoln. Your Mary- 
lander is very tenacious about being a gentleman, and what he 
does not consider gentlemanly is simply unfit for any thing, far 
less for place and authority. 

The young draftsman, of whom I spoke, turned up this 
morning, having pui'sued me from Washington. He asked 
me whether I would still let him accompany me. I observed 
that I had no objection, but that I could not permit such para- 
graphs in the papers again, and suggested there would be no 
difficulty in his travelling by himself, if he pleased. He re- 
plied that his former connection with a Black Republican 
paper might lead to his detention or molestation in the South, 
but that if he was allowed to come with me, no one would 
doubt that he was employed by an illustrated London papei*. 
The young gentleman will certainly never lose any thing for 
the want of asking. 

At the black barber's I was meekly interrogated by my 
attendant as to my belief in the story of the bombardment. 
He was astonished to find a stranger could think the event 
was probable. " De gen'lemen of Baltimore will be quite 
glad ov it. But maybe it'll come bad after all." I discovered 
my barber had strong ideas that the days of slavei'y were 



DESCRIPTION OF BALTIMORE. 79 

drawing to an end. " And what will take place then, do you 
think ? " " Wall, sare, 'spose colored men will be good as 
white men." That is it. They do not understand what a 
vast gulf flows between them and the equality of position with 
the white race Avhich most of those who have aspirations 
imagine to be meant by emancipation. He said the town 
slave-owners were very severe and harsh in demanding 
larger sums than the slaves could earn. The slaves are sent 
out to do jobs, to stand for hire, to work on the quays and 
docks. Their earnings go to the master, who punishes them 
if they do not bring home enough. Sometimes the master is 
content with a fixed sum, and all over that amount which the 
slave can get may be retained for his private purposes. 

Baltimore looks more ancient and respectable than the 
towns I have passed through, and the site on which it stands 
is undulating, so that the houses have not that flatness and 
uniformity of height which make the sti'eets of New York 
and Philadelphia resemble those of a toy city magnified. 
Why Baltimore should be called the " Monumental City " 
could not be divined by a stranger. He would never think 
that a great town of 250,000 inhabitants could derive its 
name from an obelisk cased in white marble to George 
Washington, even though it be more than 200 feet high, nor 
from the grotesque column called " Battle Monument," 
erected to the memory of those who fell in the skirmish out- 
side the city in which the British were repulsed in 1814. I 
could not procure any guide to the city worth reading, and 
strolled about at discretion, after a visit to the Maryland 
Club, of which I was made an honorary member. At dark I 
started for Norfolk in the steamer " Georgiana." 



CHAPTER XI. 

Scenes on board an American steamer — The "Merrimac" — Irish 
sailors in America — Norfolk — A telet^ram on Sunday; news 
from the seat of war — American "chafi'" and our Jack Tars. 

Sunday, April 14. — A night of disturbed sleep, owing to 
the ponderous thuiupiiig of the walking beam close to my 
head, the whizzing of steam, and the roaring of the steam- 
trumpet to warn vessels out of the way — mosquitoes, too, 
had a good deal to say to me in spite of my dirty gauze 
curtains. Soon after dawn the vessel ran alongside the jetty 
at Fortress Monroe, and I saw indistinctly the waterface 
of the work which is in some tlanger of being attacked, it is 
said, by the Virginians. There was no flag on the staff 
above the walls, and the place looked dreary and desolate. 
It has a fine bastioned profile, with moat and armed lunettes 
— the casemates were bricked up or occupied by glass 
windows, and all the guns I could make out were on the 
parapets. A few soldiers were lounging on the jetty, and 
after we had discharged a tipsy old otlicer, a few negroes, 
and some parcels, the steam-pipe brayed — it does not whis- 
tle — agaiji, and we proceeded across the mouth of the 
channel and James River towards Elizabeth River, on which 
stand Portsmouth and Gosport. 

Just as I was dressing, the door opened, and a tall, neatly 
dressed negress came in and asked me for my ticket. She 
told me she was ticket-collector for the boat, and that she was 
a slave. The latter intelligence was given Avithout any re- 
luctance or hesitation. On my way to the upper deck I ob- 
served the bar was crowded by gentlemen engaged in con- 
suming, or wailing for, cocktails or mint-juleps. The latter, 
however, could not be had just now in such perfection as 
usual, owing to the inferior condition of the mint. In the 
matter of drinks, how hospitable the Americans are ! I was 
asked to take as many as would have rendered me incapable 
of drinking again ; my excuse on the plea of inability to 



NORFOLK NAVY YARD. 81 

grapple with cocktails and the like before breakfast, was 
heard with surprise, and I was urgently entreated to abandon 
so bad a habit. 

A clear, fine sun rose from the waters of the bay up into 
the purest of pure blue skies. On our right lay a low coast 
fringed with trees, and wooded densely with stunted forest, 
through which creeks coukl be seen glinting far through the 
ibliage. Anxious looking little wooden lighthouses, hard set 
to preserve their equilibrium in the muddy waters, and bent 
at various angles, marked the narrow channels to the towns 
and hamlets on the banks, the principal trade and occupation 
of which are oyster selling and oyster eating. We are 
sailing over wondrous deposits and submarine crops of the 
much-loved bivalve. Wooden houses painted white appear 
on the siiores, and one large building with wings and a cen- 
tral portico surmounted by a belvedere, destined for the 
reception of the United States sailors in sickliess, is a strik- 
ing object in the landscape. 

The steamer in a few minutes came along-side a dirty, 
broken-down, wooden quay, lined with open booths, on which 
a small crowd, mostly of negroes, had gathered. Behind the 
shed there rose tiled and shingled roofs of mean dingy houses, 
and we could catch glimpsiis of the line of poor streets, nar- 
row, crooked, ill-paved, surmounted by a few church-steeples, 
and the large sprawling adv(;rtisement-boards of the tobacco- 
stores and oyster-sellers, which was all we could see of Ports- 
mouth or Gosport. Our vessel was in a narrow creek ; at 
one side was the town — in the centre of the stream the old 
"Pennsylvania," intended to be of 120 guns, but never com- 
missioned, and used as r^iceiving ship, was anchored — along- 
side the wall of tlie Navy Yard below us, lay the " Merri- 
mac," apparently in ordinary. The only man-of-war fit for 
sea was a curiosity — a stumpy bluff-bowed, Dutch-built lot)k- 
ing sloop, called the " Cumberland." Two or three smaller 
vessels, dismasted, were below the " Merrimac," and we could 
just see the building-sheds, in which were one or two others, 
I believe, on the stocks. A fieet of oyster-boats anchored, or 
in sailless observance of the Sunday, dotted the waters. 
There was an ancient and fishlike smell about the town wurthy 
of its appearance and of its functions as a seaport. As the 
vessel came close along-side, there was the usual greeting be- 
tween friends, and many a cry, " Well, you've heard the news ? 
The Yankees out of Sumter! Isn't it fine !" There were 
4 * 



82 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

few who did not participate in that sentiment, but there were 
some who looked black as nijrlit and said nothing. 

Whilst we were waiting for the steam ferry-boat, which 
plies to Norfolk at the other side of the creek, to take us over, 
a man-of-war boat [)ulled along-side, and the coxswain, a hand- 
some, fine-looking sailor, came on deck, and, as I happened to 
be next him, asked me if Captain Blank had come down with 
us ? I replied, that I did not know, but that the captain 
could tell him no doubt. '' He ? " said the sailor, pointing 
with great disgust to the skipper of the steamer. " Why he 
knows nothin' of his passengers, except how many dollars 
they come to," and started ofl^" to prosecute his inquiries among 
the other passengers. The boat along-side was clean, and 
was manned by six as stout fellows as ever handled an oar. 
Two I made sure of were Englishmen, and when the cox- 
swain was retiring from his fruitless search, I asked him 
-where he hailed from. " The Cove of Cork. I was in the 
navy nine years, but when I got on the West Ingy Station, I 
beerd how Uncle Sam treated his fellows, and so I joined 
him." " Cut and run, I suppose ?" " Well, not exactly. I 
got away, sir. Emigrated, you know ! " " Are there any other 
Irishmen or Englishmen onboard?" " I should think there 
■was. That man in the bow there is a mate of mine, from the , 
sweet Cove of Cork ; DriscoU by name, and there's a Belfast 
man pulls number two ; and the stroke, and the chap that 
pulls next to him is Englishmen, and fine sailors they 
are. Bates .and Rookey. They were in men-of-war too." 
" AVhat ! five out of seven, British subjects!" "Oh, ay, 
that is — we onst was — most of us now are 'Mericans, I 
think. There's plenty more of us aboard the ship." 

The steam ferry was a rickety atlair, and combined with 
the tumble-down sheds and quays to give a poor idea of 
Norfolk. The infliciion of tobacco-juice on board was re- 
markable. Although it was but seven o'clock every one had 
his quid in working order, and the air was filled with yellow- 
ish-brown rainbows and liquid parabolas, which tumbled in 
spray or in little fiocks of tlie weed on the foul decks. As it 
was Sunday, some of the numerous tiagstatfs which adorn the 
houses in both cities displayed the United States bunting ; 
but nothing could relieve the decayed air of Norfolk. The 
omnibus wliich was waiting to receive us must have been the 
earliest specimen of cjirringe building in that style on the 
continent ; and as it lunged and fiopped over the pi-odigious 



THE ATLANTIC HOTEL. 83 

bad pavement, the severe nature of which was aggravated by 
a street railway, it opened the seams as if it were going to 
fall into tirewood. The shops were all closed, of course ; but 
the houses, wooden and brick, were covered with signs and 
placards indicative of large trade in tobacco and oysters. 

Poor G. P. K. James, who spent many years here, could 
have scarce caught a novel from such a place, spite of great 
oysters, famous wild fowl, and the lauded poultry and vege- 
tables which are produced in the surrounding districts. There 
is not a hill for the traveller to ascend towards the close of a 
summer's day, nor a moated castle for a tliousand miles around. 
An execrable, tooth-cracking drive ended at last in front of the 
Atlantic Hotel, where I was doomed to take up my quarters. 
It is a dilapidated, uncleanly place, with tobacco-stained floor, 
full of tlies and strong odors. The waiters were all slaves: 
uutid}', slipshod, and careless creatures. I was shut up in a 
small room, with the usual notice on the door, that the propri- 
etor would not be responsible for anything, and that you were 
to lock your doors for fear of robbers, and that you must take 
your meals at certain hours, and other matters of the kind. 
My umbra went over to Gosport to take some sketches, he 
s;iid ; and after a poor meal, in a long room tilled with " cit- 
izens," all of them discussing Sumter, I went out into the 
street. 

The people. I observe, are of a new and mai'ked type, — 
very tall, loosely yet powerfully made, with dark complex- 
ions, stronglv-marked features, prominent noses, large angular 
mouths in square jaws, deep-seated bright eyes, low, narrow 
foreheads, — and are all of them much given to ruminate 
tobacco. The bells of the churches were tolling, and I turned 
into one ; but the heat, great enough outside, soon became 
nearly intolerable ; nor was it rendered more bearable by my 
proximity to some blacks, who were, I presume, servants or 
slaves of the great people in the forward pews. The clergy- 
man or minister had got to the Psalms, when a bustle arose 
near the door which attracted his attention, and caused all fo 
turn round. Several persons were standing up and whispering, 
whilst others were stealing on tiptoe out of the church. The 
influence extended itself gradually and all the men near the 
door were leaving rapidly. The minister, obviously interested, 
continued to read, raising his eyes towards the door. At last 
the persons near him rose up and walked boldly forth, and I 
at length followed the example, and getting into the street, 



84 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

saw men running towards the hotel. " "What is it ? " exclaimed 
I to one. " Come along, the telegraph's in at the ' Day Book.' 
The Yankees are whipped!" and so continued. I came at 
last to a crowd of men, struggling, witli their faces toward the 
wall of a sliabby house, increased by fresh arrivals, and di- 
minished by those who, having satisfied their curiosity, came 
elbowing forth in a state of much excitement, exultation, and 
perspiration. " It's all right enough ! " " Didn't I tell you 
so ? " " Bully for Beauregard and the Palmetto State ! " I 
shoved on, and read at last the programme of the cannonade 
and bombardment, and of the effects upon the fort, on a dirty 
piece of yellowish paper on the wall. It was a terrible writing. 
At all the street corners men wei'e discussing the news with 
every symptom of joy and gratification. Now I confess I 
could not share in the excitement at all. The act seemed to 
me the prelude to certain war. 

I walked up the main street, and turned up some of the al- 
leys to have a look at the town, coming out on patches of water 
and bridges over the creeks, or sandy lanes shaded by trees, 
and lined here and there by pretty wooilen villas, painted in 
bright colors. Everywhere negroes, male and female, gaudily 
dressed or in rags ; the door-steps of the narrow lanes swarm- 
ing with infant niggerdom — big-stomached, curve-legged, 
rugged-headed, and bappy — tumbling about dim-eyed tooth- 
less hags, or thick-lipped mothers. Not a word were they 
talking about Sumter. " Any news to-day? "said I to a re- 
spectable-looking negro in a blue coat and brass buttons, 
wonderful hat, and vest of amber silk, check trousers, and 
very broken-down shoes. " Well, sare, I tink uothin' much 
occur. Der hem a fire at Squire Nichol's house last night ; 
leastway so I hear, sare." Squire, let me say parenthetically, 
is used to designate justices of the peace. Was it a very 
stu\V\d poco-ciirante, or a very cunning, subtle Sambo? 

In my walk I arrived at a small pier, covered with oyster 
shells, which projected into the sea. Around it, on both sides, 
were hosts of schooners and pungys, smaller half-decked boats, 
waiting for their load of the much-loved fish for Washington, 
Baltimore, and Richmond. Some brigs and lai'ge vessels lay 
along-side the wharves and large warehouses higher up the 
creek. Observing a small group at the end of the pier, I 
walked on, and found that they consisted of fifteen or twenty 
well-dress(Kl meclianical kind of men, busily engaged in " chaf- 
fing," as Cockneys would call it, tlue crew of the raanof-war 



AN INCIPIENT ROW. 85 

boat I had seen in the morning. Tlie sailors were stretched 
on the thwarts, some rather amused, others sullen at the or- 
deal. " You better just pull down that cussed old rag of 
yours, and bring your old ship over to the Southern Confed- 
eracy. I guess we can take your ' Cumberland ' whenever 
we like ! Why don't you go, and touch off your guns at 
Charleston ? " Presently the coxswain came down with a 
parcel under his arm, and stepped into the boat. " Give way, 
my lads ; " and the oars dipped in the water. "When the boat 
had gone a few yards from the shore, the crowd cried out : 
" Down with the Yankees ! ilun-ah for the Southern Con- 
federacy ! " and some among them threw oyster shells at the 
boat, one of which struck the coxswain on the head. " Back 
water ! Back water all. Hard ! " he shouted ; and as the 
boat's stern neared the land, he stood up and made a leap in 

among the crowd like a tiger. " You cowardly d d set. 

Who threw the shells ? " No one answered at first, but a 
little wizened man at last squeaked out : " I guess you'll have 
shells of another kind if you remain here much longer." The 
sailor howled with rage : " Why, you poor devils, I'd whip 
any half-dozen of you, — teeth, knives, and all — in five min- 
utes ; and my boys there in the boat would clear your whole 
town. What do you mean by barking at the Stars and 
Stripes? Do you see that ship?" he shouted, pointing tow- 
ards the " Cumberland." " Why the lads aboard of her 
would knock every darned seceder in your State into a 
cocked hat in a brace of shakes ! And now who's coming 
on ? " Tiie invitation was not accepted, and the sailor with- 
drew, with his angry aye^ fixed on the people, who gave him 
a kind of groan ; but there were no oyster siiells this time. 
" In spite of his blowing, I tell yer," said one of them, " there's 
some good men from old Virgiiuiy abo'rd o' that ship that will 
never fire a shot agin us." " Oh, we'll fix her right enough," 
remarked another, " when the time comes." I returned to 
my room, sat down, and wrote for some hours. The dinner 
in the Atlantic Hotel was of a description to make one wish 
the desire for food had never been invented. JNIy neighbor 
said he was not " quite content about this Sumter business. 
There's nary one killed nor wownded." 

Sunday is a very dull day in Norfolk, — no mails, no post, 
no steamers ; and, at the best, Norfolk must be dull exceed- 
ingly. The superinlendent of the Seaboard and Roanoke Rail- 
way, having heard that I was about proceeding to Charleston, 



86 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

called upon me to offer every facility in his power. Sent 
Moses with letters to post-office. At night the mosquitoes 
were very aggressive and successful. This is the first place 
in which the bedrooms are unprovided with gas. A mutton 
dip almost made me regret the fact. 



CHAPTER Xn. 

Portsmouth — EaiJway journey tlirough the forest — The great Dis- 
mal Swamp — American newspapers — Cattle on the Line — Ne- 
gro labor — On through the Pine Forest — The Confederate flag 

— Goldsborough ; popular excitement — Weldon — Wilmington 

— The Vigilance Committee. 

Monday, April 15. — Up at dawn. Crossed by ferry to 
Portsmouth, and arrived at railway station, which was at no" 
place in particular, in a street down which the rails were laid. 
Mr. Robinson, the superintendent, gave rae permission to take 
a seat in the engine car, to which I mounted accordingly, was 
duly introduced to, and shook hands with the engineer and 
the stoker, and took ray seat next the boiler.. Can any solid 
reason be given why we should not have those engine sheds 
or cars in England ? They consist of a light frame placed on 
the connection of the engine with the tender, and projecting 
so as to include the end of the boiler and the stoke-hole. 
They protect the engineer from rain, storm, sun, or dust. 
Windows at each side afford a clear view in all directions, 
and the engineer can step out on the engine itself by the 
doors on the front part of the shed. There is just room for 
four persons to sit uncomfortably, the persons next the boiler 
being continually in dread of roasting their legs at the fur- 
nace, and those next the tender being in danger of getting 
logs of wood from it shaken down on their feet. Neverthe- 
less I rarely enjoyed anything more than that trip. It is true 
one's enjoyment was marred by want of breakfast, for I could 
not manage the cake of dough and the cup of bitter, sour, 
greasy nastiness, called coffee, which were presented to me in 
lieu of that meal this morning. 

But the novelty of the scene through which I passed atoned 
for the small privation. I do not speak of the ragged streets 
and lines of sheds through which the train passed, with the 
great bell of the engine tolling as if it were threatening death 
to the early pigs, cocks, hens, and negroes and dogs which 



88 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

walked between the rails — the latter, by the by, were always 
the first to leave — the negroes generally divided with the 
pigs the honor of making the nearest stand to the train — nor 
do I speak of the miserable suburbs of wooden shanties, nor 
of the expanse of inundated lands outside tlie town. Passing 
all these, we settled down at last to our work: the stoker fired 
up, the engine rattled along over the rugged lane between the 
trees which now began to sweep around us from the horizon, 
where they rose like the bank of a river or the shores of a 
sea, and presently we plunged into the gloom of the primeval 
Ibrest, struggling as it were, with the last wave of the deluge. 

The railroad, leaving the land, boldly leaped into the air, 
and was carried on frailest cobweb-seeming tracery of wood 
far above black waters, from which rose a thick growth and 
upshooting of black stems of dead trees, mingled with the 
trunks and branches of others still living, throwing out a most 
luxuriant vegetation. The trestle-work over which the train 
was borne, judged by the eye, was of the slightest possible 
construction. Sometimes one series of trestles was placed 
above another, so that the cars ran on a level with the tops 
of the trees ; and, looking down, we could see before the ti'ain 
parsed the inky surface of the waters, broken into rings and 
agitated, }"ound the beams of wood. The trees were draped 
with long creepers and shrouds of Spanish moss, which fell 
from branch to branch, smothering the leaves in their clammy 
embrace, or waving in pendulous folds in the air. Cypress, 
live-oak, the dogwood, and ])ine struggled for life with the 
watei', and about their stems tloated balks of timber, waifs and 
strays carried from the rafts by flood, or the forgotten spoils of 
the lumberer. On these lay tortoises, turtles, and enormous 
frogs, which lifted their heads with a lazy curiosity when the 
train rushed by, or fiopped into the water as if the sight and 
noise were too much tor their nerves. Once a dark body of 
greater size plashed into the curi-ent which marked the course 
of a rivei'. " There's many allygaitors come up here at times," 
said the engineer, in reply to my question ; " but I don't take 
much account of tliem." 

When the trestle-work ceased, the line was continued 
through the same description of scenery, generally in the 
midst of water, on high embankments which were contiuiially 
cut by black rapid streams, crossed by bridges on trestles of 
great span. The strange tract we are passing through is the 
" Dismal Swamp," a name which must have but imperfectly 



AN AMERICAN ENGINEER. 89 

expressed its horrors before the railway Iiad traversed its out- 
skirts, and the canal, which is constructed in its midst, left 
traces of the presence of man in that remnant of the world's 
exit from the flood. In the centre of this vast desolation there 
is a large loch, called "Lake Drumraond," in the jungle and 
brakes around which the runaway slaves of the plantations 
long hai'bored, and once or twice assembled bands of depreda- 
tors, which were hunted down, broken up, and destroyed like 
wild beasts. 

Mr. Robinson, a young man some twenty-seven years of 
age, was an excellent representative of the young American 
— full of intelligence, well-read, a little romantic in spite of 
his practical habits and dealing with matters of fact, much at- 
tached to the literature, if not to the people, of the old coun- 
try ; and so far satisfied that English engineers knew some- 
thing of their business, as to be anxious to show that American 
engineers were not behind them. He asked me about Wash- 
ington politics with as much interest as if he had never read a 
newspaper. I made a remark to that efltect. " Oh, sir, we 
can't believe," exclaimed he, " a word we read in our papers. 
They tell a story one day, to contradict it the next. We never 
know when to trust them, and that's one reason, I believe, 
you find us all so anxious to ask questions and get informa- 
tion from gentlemen we meet travelling." Of the future he 
spoke with apprehension; "but," said he, "I am here repre- 
senting the interests of a large number of Northern sharehold- 
ers, and I will do my best for them. If it comes to blows 
after this, they will lose all, and I must stand by ray own 
friends down South, though I don't belong to it." 

So we rattle on, till the scene, at first so attractive, becomes 
dreary and monotonous, and I tire of looking out for larger 
turtles or more alligators. The silence of these woods is op- 
pressive. There is no sign of life where the train passes 
through the water, except among the amphibious creatures. 
After a time, however, when we draw out of the swamp and 
get into a dry patch, wild, ragged-looking cattle may be seen 
staring at us through the trees, or tearing across the rail, and 
herds of porkers, nearly in the wild-boar stage, scuttle over 
the open. Then the engineer opens the valve ; the sonorous 
roar of the engine echoes though the woods, and now and then 
there is a little excitement caused by a race between a pig 
and the engine, and piggy is occasionally whipped off his legs 
by the cow-lifter, and hoisted volatile into the ditch at one 



90 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

side. When a herd of cattle, however, get on the line and 
show fight, the matter is serious. The steam horn is sounded, 
the bell rung, and steam is eased off, and every means used to 
escape collision ; for the railway company is obliged to pay 
the owner for whatever animals the ti'ains kill, and a cow's 
body on one of these poor rails is an impediment sufficient to 
throw the engine off, and " send us to immortal smash." 

It was long before we saw any v/orkmen or guards on the 
line ; but at one place I got out to look at a shanty of one of 
the road watchmen. It was a building of logs, some twenty feet 
long by twelve feet broad, made in the rudest manner, with au 
earthen roof, and mud stuffed and plastered between the logs 
to keep out the rain. Although the day was exceedingly hot, 
there were two logs blazing on the hearth, over which was 
suspended a pot of potatoes. The air inside was stifling, and 
the black beams of the roof glistened with a clammy sweat 
from smoke and unwholesome vapors. There was not an ar- 
ticle of furniture, except a big deal chest and a small stool, in 
the place ; a mug and a teacup stood on a rude shelf nailed to 
the wall. The owner of this establishment, a stout negro, was 
busily engaged with others in " wooding up " the engine from 
the pile of cut timber by the roadside. The necessity of stop- 
ping caused by the rapid consumption is one of the desagremens 
of wood fueL The wood is cut down and stacked on plat- 
forms, at certain intervals along the line ; and the quantity 
used is checked off against the company at the rate of so much 
per cord. The negro was one of many slaves let out to the 
company. "White men would not do the work, or were too 
expensive ; but the overseers and gangsmen were whites. 
" How can they bear that fire in the hut ? " " Well. If you 
went into it in the very hottest day in summer, you would find 
the niggers sitting close up to blazing pine-logs; and they sleep 
at night, or by day when they've fed to the -full, in the same 
way." My friend, nevertheless, did not seem to understand 
that any country could get on without negro laborers. 

By degrees we got beyond the swamps, and came upon 
patches of cleared land — that is, the forest had been cut 
down, and the only traces left of it were the stumps, some four 
or five feet high, "snagging" up above the ground; or the 
trees had been girdled round, so as to kill them, and the black 
trunks and stiff arms gave an air of meagre melancholy and 
desertion to the place, which was quite opposite to its real 
condition. Here it was that the normal forest and swamp had 



THE STARS AND BARS. 91 

been subjugated by man. Presently we came in sight of a 
flag fluttering from a lofty pine, which had been strij)ped of 
its branches, throwing broad bars of red and white to the air, 
with a blue square in the upper quarter containing seven stars. 
'• Tiiat's our flag," — said the engineer, who was a quiet man, 
much given to turning steam-cocks, examining gauges, wip- 
ing his hands in fluffy impromptu handkerchiefs, and smoking 
tobacco — " That's our flag ! And long may it wave — o'er 
the land of the free and the home of the ber-rave ! " As we 
passed, a small crowd of men, women, and children, of all 
colors, in front of a group of poor broken-down shanties or 
log-huts, cheered — to speak more correctly — whooped and 
yell(5d vehemently. The cry was returned by the passengers 
in the train. " We're all tlie right sort hereabouts," said the 
engineer. " Hurrah for Jeff Davis ! " The right sort were 
not particularly flourishing in outward aspect, at all events. 
The women, pale-fliced, were tawdry and ragged ; the men, 
yellow, seedy looking. For the first time in the States, I 
noticed barefooted people. 

Now began another phase of scenery — an interminable 
pine-forest, far as the eye could reach, shutting out the light 
on each side by a wooden wall. From this forest came the 
strongest odor of turpentine ; presently black streaks of 
smoke floated out of the wood, and here and there we passed 
cleared spaces, where in rude-looding furnaces and fiictories 
I)eople more squalid and miserable looking than before were 
preparing pitch, tar, turpentine, i-osin, and other naval stores, 
for which this part of North Carolina is famous. The stems 
of the trees around are marked by white scars, where the tap- 
pings for the turpentine take place, and many dead trunks 
testified how the pi'ocess ended. 

Again, over another log village, a Confederate flag floated 
in the air ; and the people ran out, negroes and all, and cheer- 
ed as before. The new flag is not so glaring and gaudy as 
the Stars and Stripes ; but, at a distance, when the folds hang 
together, there is a considerable resemblance in the general 
effect of the two. If ever there is a real sentiment du drapeau 
got up in the South, it will be difficult indeed for the North 
to restore the Union. These pieces of colored bunting seem 
to twine themselves through heart and brain. 

The stations along the roadside now gradually grew in pro- 
portion, and instead of a small sentry-box beside a wood pile, 
there were three or four wooden houses, a platform, a booking 



92 IVn.' DIARY NORTH A2fD SOUTH. 

office, an " exchange " or drinking room, and general stores, 
like the shops of assorted articles in an Irish town. Around 
these still grew the eternal forest, or patches of cleared land 
dotted with black stumps. These stations have very grand 
names, and the stores are dignified by high-sounding titles ; 
nor are '* billiard saloons " and " restaurants " wanting. We 
generally found a group of people waiting at each ; and it 
really was most astonishing to see well-dressed, respectable- 
looking men and women emerge out of the " dismal swamp," 
and out of the depths of the forest, with silk parasols and 
crinoline, bandboxes and portmanteaux, in the most civilized 
style. There were always some negroes, male and female, in 
attendance on the voyagers, handling the baggage or the ba- 
bies, and looking comfortable enough, but not luii)py. The 
only evidence of the good spirits and happiness of these peo- 
ple which I saw was on the part of a number of men who 
were going off" from a plantation for the fishing on the coast. 
They and their wives and sisters, arrayed in their best — which 
means their brightest, colors — were grinning from ear to 
ear as they bade good-by. The negro likes the mild excite- 
ment of sea fishing, and in pursuit of it he feels for the mo- 
ment free. 

At Goldsborough, which is the first place of importance -on 
the line, the wave of the Secession tide struck us in full career. 
The station, the hotels, the sti'eet through which the rail ran 
was filled with an excited mob, all carrying arras, with signs 
here and there of a desire to get up some kind of uniform — 
flushed faces, wild eyes, screaming mouths, hurrahing for 
"Jeft' Davis" and "the Southern Confederacy," so that the 
yells overpowered the discordant bands which were busy with 
" Dixie's Land." Here was the true revolutionary furor in 
full sway. The men hectoi'ed, swore, cheered, and slapped 
each other on the backs ; the women, in their best, waved 
handkerchiefs and flung down garlands from the windows. 
All was noise, dust, and patriotism. 

It was a strange sight and a wonderful event at which we 
were assisting. These men were a levy of the people of 
North Carolina called out by the Governor of the State for 
the purpose of seizing upon forts Caswell and Macon, belong- 
ing to the Federal Government, and left unprotected and un- 
defended. The enthusiasm of the " citizens " was unbounded, 
nor was it quite free from a taint of alcohol. Many of the 
volunteers had flint firelocks, only a few had rifles. All 



WAR FEVER. 93 

kinds of head-<lress were visible, and caps, belts, ana pouches 
of infinite vanety. A man in a large wide-awake, with a 
cock's feather in it, a blue frock-coat, with a red sash and a 
pair of cotton trousers thrust into his boots, came out of 
Griswold's Hotel with a sword under his arm, and an article 
which might have been a napkin of long service, in one hand. 
He waved the article enthusiastically, swaying to and fro on 
his legs, and ejaculating " H'ra for Jeff Dav's — H'ra for 
S'thern E'r'rights ! " and tottered over to the carriage througli 
the crowd amid the violent vibration of all the ladies' hand- 
kerchiefs in the balcony. Just as he got into the train, a man 
in uniform daslied after him, and caught him by the elbow, 
exclaiming, " Them's not the cars. General ! The cars this 
way, General ! " The military dignitary, however, felt that if 
he permitted such liberties in the hour of victory he was de- 
graded forever, so, screwing u[) his lips and looking grave 
and grand, he proceeded as follows : " Sergea.nt, you go be 

• I say these are my cars ! They're all my cars ! I'll 

send them where I please — to if I like, sir. They 

shall go where I please — to New York, sir, or New Orleans, 
sir ! And sir, I'll arrest you." This famous idea dis- 
tracted the General's attention from his project of entering the 
train, and muttering, " I'll arrest you," he tacked backwards 
and forwards to the hotel again. 

As the train started on its journey, there was renewed 
yelling, which split the ear — a savage cry many notes higher 
than the most ringing cheer. At the wayside inn, where we 
dined — piece de resistance being pig — the attendants, comely, 
well-dressed, clean negresses were slaves — "worth a thousand 
dollars each." I am not favorably impressed by either the 
food or the mode of living, or the manners of the company. 
One man made very coarse jokes about " Abe Lincoln " and 
" negro wenches," which nothing but extreme party passion 
and bad taste could tolerate. Several of the passengers had 
been clerks in Government offices at Washington, and had 
been dismissed because they would not take the oath of alle- 
giance. They were hurrying off full of zeal and patriotism 

to tender their services to the Montgomery Government. 

****** 

I had been the object of many attentions and civilities from 
gentlemen in the train during my journey. One of them, who 
told me he was a municipal dignitary of Weldon, having ex- 
hausted all the inducements that he could think of to induce 



to <5»v^ ,•v^^ >, I it. 

l>ft « l,-»n€. K%tlx\ A\><l vv<«')t^\Ti)<?^ Tvww, h'W * Ksnv t»hioh 

w^^ijC^hKvr «i tshV ^t5^ >«^<h his knir<\ »r.ns im- omi ^>4' it inw 

it is oftri'Hv^ to « w<-»w <^is3ncT(>osWo t^xtmt w-h<>« i\ is hoM t^'* 
W><vsirt jK^j ,<(i\> iivftn x^ ho A-»n>os to «ii «in h^s « vieht h> sK«»v 
x>v«r K\J, 1 A.sk<v^ tor « nvm, l>«t 1 x«;ss hN}»^ iKj^t thow w<mv 
JH^ msny jxv»j'vK^ wk^x in,ir sK^rtt ,i>j<;t yh->>x thsu u x*-*!* ^hm |>os>!»- 
Wf n^ fTAo tin* i-ijx^ to mx-sac'lf ; H»n «t U^ I «>^<5o * Ixsi^^in 
t<^r rw''!ns^>T >v:sMr<s?*><vn. ^Vho« tho «<»\t trAin os«v> i«» !>»>«'- 
'^ ".n XTTv oivvllv int^wirtN) whojhor I l>««i Any 

-^w A jxAS:^s^»n^r to «^i> iiio wy l>t\i Ajvi s«vn><Nj 
^ »iRS)-»k«s<si A) wy TVtijSAl ; atkJ I jyrwix-^Nl thixv 

I _ .; moii !*norirvjt asIch^x m tvx^ ho«i in th<» no\t ixxxn^ 

to mt «,< 1 ^-^s^arvi t^t\M>cti Uk" )VASSA<r tx^ th<^ dininjjsx^xm. 

TV **j»r}js4 '' M*V!(Ws *hv> hj*<i cvwi^ *«h wy Wtx^r M> thip 
jy^u Twwmoit AtW 5» V>«4i «lts<^'K>\ ^>aW Am? AptAtt><k H<» 
sAi<i W hA«i hcon jvwivvd «)v* hx «V Vi4tiJAn<«<> iVwmittMv, 
>rho x*y'n^ rAihor limink. Am? x-rry iw»)<<rsnixx\ TJ>oy x»viv 
hA«)>?inc tho p:\ , - th<> Jvv<t-«^fli*^v Ami tho rsilx^Ay j»tA« 
ti*vn, to \^ouv< 1 - Ami AK%li»ioriistSs Ami «-oiv *'»l%Ujjx'Hi 

to k<>0:j> ihomso.\v> \v:>i^ jjw ; x . v t^x tJ>^> 

A<i'f»ornj hsrss Ami ho hA«i wi. , m tVyyw 

|^Ayi1•lS, wo A X isij, Thoy onvvv-^ \<ir.^uu\i U»« iw^jHVlin^ wy 
opinion »m' Sooojisiiw. And >^r^<'^r!\i r»> h.-^xv An A>T»iicno«> xsith m<» 
in *xj>ier to irix-o n>o Any , Iv rrn^niixvi. 

1 rs-iY^o* ssv x<;->(,<i: r.-.^N .>!>onins:; hnt 

^- .X iiiix^rx >ox^- wnh th«» VigilA^HV 

»■ '* ,_ , ..;vi x*As clAti thoy divi not »iist«H> 

WK^ K*^, how-oxvr, jl)oT<p >R-»s iittV or mx«<v. I mijiht Kaxx> 
*s i«-<^il sJojM tw iho jxJsJttvrtn txJ" \h^ railx^^^x *t^»^i^^^l iMjtsK^ 
lYsins oivn^irwr in Ami i^%in^ owt shivxk tho Twvm Ami thi^ lx><i 
on «hioh I Iaj-, »mi cn4riw« s*Hvrt^U |^»<ix\i. xxxArtsi. «histK>i^ 
Ami rAnc K^ll* oiojae to mx W>-4kx1*s 



Clf AFTER XI J J. 

v. : '■ ' ,','•'; • ; — 

f - "it 

,....^/, ^.,.... - ...... ,, . , J.xt- 

KAHf,r ri*?xf. nrv/mrn^r, »/y>o aftfrr dawn, I ar'/».«/'yl fi^e Caf»*; 
y<'fir ii)v*^, f/Tt wUU'.h yi\\m\u<^/ifi h »if,rjar*^l, hj a *f^am 
i*^ry-\»fftit. <yn iht; qtiny Jay qnantiti^ of »>i''/t aivl sib^jfl. 
** ffow '-am*; th*?**; Ji^rr*;?'' J ifiqrjirf-A ** Th^V*; arrti-alK^i- 

tion p'll'," ».ai/l mj r»*^^hFx/r; '•th^ry'v^; b*'^^ wfihin'^ kiarH fttr 
two fu^rtith^ \/!u:k, \nit mm that .Hrirnf/rr'* \j»\it^i, I jrrj*;*i th^ 
w^/Ti't Fx<; wanf^'d." To my rnind, tK^ <y>ncln»!/^) wa< J/y no 
m'fjrti' |/;j?ifirnaf>;. Fr^/fn f,h*; »rfian gfari'->', J ha<'l ^/ W»l- 
rnifivf/^/n, with jm fl<;<;t ^/ ••^^i/^/ri'rr-t and bri<?A rnrowdin;? the 
f«'«'r?jfl and rafnd riv*;r, J *.}tf>aU\ th'tnk h wa-t a thriving pla^». 
O/rrfVI'rrat^, flajr* wav*yl r/r«rr tf»e pfihlic 'ofi'M'tu'/ji., atA J was 
\u^',ru\t:t\ that, th*; fff/rr^ ba/I J^'^'m ^^'/a-A wii}w->fjt <f\)YHt^Mm <fr 
'JiffKijIfy. J '^n »>?*; no «ti;(ri h^r*; of th^ •* aff*^;t>jri V/ tfie 
Union," w}iifh, fiiT/ir«\'in% to Mr. Seward, tswU^'ten aJ! '* nfy/f^ 

Ah w<; trav'rr*/^] fh^; flat awl rjr 'hrr/n^h 

whi';h th'i rail j^a*,-*/?', Omf'id^jrat^-, 'i^*'^.*-A 

tj». *;v*;ry wh'rTo; ; m*in and wf/m*^ rep^^t^i th^^ narw/rial ''Ty ; 
at ftv'rry AtatU/fi rnilitia-rn^i and volante*m w*rre waiting ff^r 
th*; train, and th*; ev^rHa^tinj? wr/rd **Sanrter*' ran ibrcmgh 
all th*; <'/Tnv*rrvit'tffn in the ^rar^i. 

Tlie Carolinians ar*; (ytyaJtAH of tiiming oat a fair force of 
r^avalry. At ea^;h »ty>pping-plar>; I r/t^aerved ^ksAfJlfAif/r-iesi 
tMhf^*'A rjnder the tre^r^j, and Jight flrivlrtf^ vehicle!*, drawn 
hy wiry rnuv^nhr anirrmU, r»ot remarkable f'^^r size, bnt strong- 
Waking and a/rtive. S<>me farmers in bine jackets, and yellow 
braid and fadngs, hande^I rf'^ond their swords to f*e adroired 
by the cy/m|>any, A few blades ha/1 flashed in obfl^;ure Mexi- 
can skirmisher — f/ne, however, ba^l been l^jome Si^nst ** the 



96 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Britislicrs." I inquired of a fine, tall, fair-haired young fel- 
low whom they expected to fight. " That's more than I can 
tell," tjuoth he. " The Yankees ain't such cussed fools as to 
tliink they can come here and whip us, let alone the British." 
" Wliy, what have the British got to do with it?" "They 
are bound to take our part : if they don't, we'll just give them 
a hint about cotton, and that will set matters right." This 
was said very much with ihe air of a man who knows what 
he is talking about, and who was quite satisfied " he had you 
there." I found it was still dis[)leasing to most people, [)artic- 
ularly one or two of the fair sex, that more Yankees were 
not killed at Sumter. All the people who addressed me 
prefixed my name, wiiich they soon found out, by " Major " 
or " Colonel " — " Captain " is very low, almost indicative of 
contempt. The conductor who took our tickets was called 
" Captain." 

At tile Pedee River the rail is carried over marsh and 
stream on trestle work for two miles. " This is the kind of 
country we'll catch the Yankees in, if they come to invade us. 
They'll iiave some pretty tall swimming, and get knocked on 
the head, if ever they gets to land. 1 wish there was ten 
thousand of the cusses in it tiiis minute." At Nichol's station 
on tiie frontiers of South Carolina, our baggage was regularly 
examined at tlie Custom House, but I did not see any one 
pay duties. As the train approaciied the level and marshy 
laud near Ciiarleston, the square block of Fort Sumter was 
seen rising' above the water witli the " stars and bars " flying 
over it, and the spectacle created great eiitluisiasm among the 
passengers. The smoke was still rising from an angle of tlie 
walls. Outside the village-like sidiurbs of the city a regiment 
was marching for old V^irgiiuiy amid the cheers of the people 
— cavalry were picketed in tlie fields and gardens — tents 
uiid men were visible in the by-wa^s. 

It was nearly ilark when we readied the station. I was 
recommended to go to the Mills House, and on arriving there 
found Mr. Ward, whom I liad already met in New York and 
Washington, and who gave me an account of the bombard- 
ment and surrender of the fort. The hotel was full of notsi- 
bilities. 1 was introduced to ex-Governor Mannuig, Senator 
Chestnut, Hon. Porcher IMiles, on the staH" of General Beau- 
regard, ami to Colonel Lucas, aitle-de-cainp to Governor 
Piekeus. I was taken after dinner and introduced to Gen- 
eral Beauregard, who was engaged, late as it was, in his room 



JOHN MANNING. 97 

at the Head-Quarters writing despatches. The General is a 
small, compact man, about thirty-six years of au;e, with a 
quick, and intelligent eye and action, and a good deal of the 
Frenchman in his manner and look. He received me in the 
most cordial manner, and introduced me to his engineer officer, 
]\Iajor Whiting, whom he assigned to lead me over the works 
next day. 

After some general conversation I took my leave ; but be- 
fore I went, the General said, " You shall go everywhere and 
see everytliing ; we rely on your discretion, and knowledge 
of what is fair in dealing with what you see. Of course you 
don't expect to tind reguh\r soldiers in our camps or very sci- 
entitic works." I answered the General, that he miglit rely 
on my making no improper use of what I saw in this country, 
but, ** unless you tell me to the contrary, I shall write an ac- 
count of all 1 see to the other side of the watei", and if, when 
it comes back, there are things you would rather not have 
known, you must not blame me." He smiled, and said, " I 
dare say we'll have great changes by that time." 

That night I sat in the Cliarleston Club with John Manning. 
Who that has ever met him can be indifferent to the charms 
of manner and of personal appearance, which render the ex- 
Governor of the State so attractive ? There were others 
present, senatoi-s or congressmen, like Mr. Chestnut and Mr. 
Porcher Miles. We talked long, and at last angrily, as 
might be between friends, of political affairs. 

I own it was a little irritating to me to hear men indulge in 
extravagant broad menace and rodomontade, such as came 
from their lips. " They would welcome the world in arms 
witii hospitable hands to bloody graves." " They never could 
be conquered." " Creation could not do it," and so on. I was 
obliged to handle the question quietly at first — to ask them 
" if they admitted the French were a brave and warlike 
people!" " Yes, certainly." " Do you tliink you could bet- 
ter defend yourselves against invasion than the people of 
France?" "Well, no; but we'd make it pretty hard busi- 
ness for the Yankees." " Suppose the Yankees, as you call 
them, come with such preponderance of men and materiel, 
that they are three to your one, will you not be forced to sub- 
mit?" "Never." " Then either you are braver, better dis- 
ciphned, more warlike than the people and soldiers of France, 
or you alone, of all thi' nations in tlie world, possess the means 
of resisting physical laws which prevail in war, as in other 
5 



98 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

affairs of life." " No. The Yankees are cowardly rascals. 
We have proved it by kicking and cuffing them till we are 
tired of it ; besides, we know John Bull very well. He will 
make a great fuss about non-interference at first, but when he 
begins to want cotton he'll come off his perch." I found this 
was the fixed idea everywhere. The doctrine of •' cotton is 
king," — to us who have not much considered the question a 
grievous delusion or an unmeaning babble — to them is a 
lively all-powerful faith without distracting heresies or schisms. 
They have in it enunciated their full belief, and indeed there 
is some truth in it, in so far as we year after year by the stim- 
ulants of coal, capital, and machinery have been working up 
a manufacture on which four or five millions of our population 
depend for bread and life, which cannot be carried on without 
the assistance of a nation, that may at any time refuse us an 
adequate supply, or be cut off from giving it by* war. 

Political economy, we are well aware, is a fine science, but 
its followers are capable of tremendous absurdities in practice. 
The dependence of such a lai'ge proportion of the English peo- 
ple on this sole article of American cotton is fraught with the 
utmost danger to our honor and to our prosperity. Here were 
these Southern gentlemen exulting in their power to control the 
policy of Great Britain, and it was small consolation to me to 
assure them they were mistaken ; in case we did not act as 
they anticipated, it could not be denied Great Britain would 
plunge an immense proportion of her people — a nation of 
manufacturers — into pauperism, which must leave them de- 
pendent on the national funds, or more properly on the prop- 
erty and accumulated capital of the district. 

About 8-30, p. M., a deep bell began to toll. " What is 
that?" "It's for all the colored people to clear out of the 
streets and go home. The guards will arrest any who are 
found out without passes in half an hour." There was much 
noise in the streets, drums beating, men cheering, and march- 
ing, and the hotel is crammed full with soldiers. 

April Ylth. — The streets of Charleston present some such 
aspect as those of Paris in the last revolution. Crowds of 
armed men singing and promenading the streets. The battle- 
blood running through their veins — that hot oxygen which is 
called " the flush of victory " on the cheek ; restaurants full, 
revelling in bar-rooms, club-rooms crowded, orgies and ca- 
rousings in tavern or private house, in tap-room, from cabaret 
— down narrow alleys, in the broad highway. Sumter has 



VISIT TO FORT SUMTER. 99 

set them distraught ; never was such a victory ; never such 
brave lads ; never such a fight. There are pamphlets al- 
ready full of the incident. It is a bloodless Waterloo or Sol- 
ferino. 

After breakfast I went down to the quay, with a par^ of 
the General's staff, to visit Fort Sumter. The senators and 
governors turned soldiers wore blue military caps, with " pal- 
metto " trees embroidered thereon ; blue frock-coats, with up- 
right collars, and shoulder-straps edged with lace, and marked 
with two silver bars, to designate their rank of captain ; gilt 
buttons, with the palmetto in relief; blue trousers, with a 
gold-lace cord, and brass spurs — no straps. The day was 
sweltering, but a strong breeze blew in the harboi*, and puffed 
the dust of Charleston, coating our clothes, and filling our eyes 
with powder. The streets were crowded with lanky lads, 
clanking spurs, and sabres, with awkward squads marching to 
and fro, with drummers beating calls, and ruffles, and points 
of war ; around them groups of grinning negroes delighted 
with the glare and glitter, a holiday, and a new idea for them 

— Secession flags waving out of all the windows — little Irish 
boys shouting out, " Battle of Fort Sumter ! New edishun ! " 

— As we walked down towards the quay, where the steamer 
was lying, numerous traces of the unsettled state of men's 
minds broke out in the hurried conversations of the various 
friends who stopped to speak for a few moments. " Well, 
governor, the old Union is gone at last ! " " Have you heard 
what Abe is going to do ? " "I don't think Beauregard will 
have much more fighting for it. What do you think ? " And 
so on. Our little Creole friend, by the by, is popular beyond 
description. There are all kinds of doggerel rhymes in his 
honor — one with a refrain — 

" With cannon and musket, with shell and petard, 
We salute the North with our Beau-regard " — 

is much in favor. 

We passed through the market, where the stalls are kept 
by fat negresses and old " unkeys." There is a sort of vul- 
ture or buzzard here, much encouraged as scavengers, and — 
but all the world has heard of the Charleston vultures — so 
we will leave them to their garbage. Near the quay, where 
the steamer was lying, there is a very fine building in white 
marble, which attract-ed our notice. It was unfinished, and 
immense blocks of the glistening stone destined for its com- 



100 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

pletion, lay on the ground. " What is that ? " I inquired. 
" Why, it's a custom-house Uncle Sam was building for our 
benefit, but I don't think he'll ever raise a cent for his treas- 
ury out of it." " Will you complete it ? " "I should think 
not. , We'll lay on few duties ; and what we want is free- 
trade, and no duties at all, except for public purposes. The 
Yankees have plundered us with their custom-houses and du- 
ties long enough." An old gentleman here stopped us. " You 
will do me the greatest favor," he said to one of our party who 
knew him, " if you will get me something to do for our glori- 
ous cause. Old as I am, I can carry a musket — not far, to 
be sure, but I can kill a Yankee if he comes near." When 
he had gone, my friend told me the speaker was a man of for- 
tune, two of whose sons Avere in camp at Morris' Island, but 
that he was suspected of Union sentiments, as he had a North- 
ern wife, and hence his extreme vehemence and devotion. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Southern volunteers — Unpopularity of the press — Charleston — 
Fort Sumter — Morris' Island — Anti-union enthusiasm — Anec- 
dote of Colonel Wigfall — Interior view of tlie fort — North versus 
South. 

There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the 
men in uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of 
goods, commissariat stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, sup- 
plies for the volunteer army on Morris' Island. I was amused 
by the names of the various corps, " Tigers," " Lions," " Scor- 
pions," " Palmetto Eagles," " Guards," of Pickens, Sumter, 
Marion, and of various other denominations, painted on the 
boxes. The original formation of these volunteers is in com- 
panies, and they know nothing of battalions or regiments. 
The tendency in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify 
the greatest vanity of the greatest number. These companies 
do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. Some were 
" dandies," and " swells," and affected to look down on their 
neighbors and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was 
difficulty in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man 
had an idea that he was as good an engineer as anybody else, 
" and a good deal bettei*, if it came to that." It was easy to 
perceive it was the old story of volunteer and regular in this 
little army. 

As we got on deck, the Major saw a number of rough, long- 
haired-looking fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter but- 
tons and worsted braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their 
cigars. " Gentlemen," quoth he, very courteously, " you'll 
oblige me by not smoking over the hay. There's powder be- 
low." " I don't believe we're going to burn the hay this tiuKi, 
kernel," was the rej)ly, "and anyway, we'll put it out afore it 
reaches the 'bustibles," and they went on smoking. The Ma- 
jor grumbled, and worse, and drew off. 

Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belong- 



102 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ing to the New York and local papers. I saw a short time 
afterwards a description of the trip by one of these gentlemen, 
in which he described it as an affair got up specially for him- 
self, probably in order to avenge himself on his military per- 
secutors, for he had complained to me the evening before, that 

the chief of General Beauregard's staff told him to go to , 

when he applied at head-quarters for some information. I 
found from the tone and looks of my friends, that these literary 
gentlemen were received with great disfavor, and Major Whit- 
ing, who is a bibliomaniac, and has a very great liking for the 
best English writers, could not conceal his repugnance and 
antipathy to my unfortunate confreres. " If I had my way, 
I would Hing them into the water ; but the General has given 
them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who have 
brought all this trouble on our country." 

The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I, 
to my astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and 
deeper in the South, and they are not accompanied by the 
signs of dread of its power which exist in New York, where 
men speak of the cliiefs of the most notorious journals very 
much as peofde in Italian cities of past time might have talked 
of the most infamous bravo or the chief of some band of as- 
sassins. Whiting comforted himself by the reflection that they 
would soon have their lingers in a vice, and then pulling out 
a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the representative 
thei'eof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified contradic- 
tion to most of the statements contained in " the full and accu- 
rate particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sum- 
ter," in the said journal, which the person in question listened 
to with becoming meekness and contrition. " If I knew who 
wrote it," said the Major, " I'd make him eat it." 

I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the 
mass of society on board, and, " after compliments," as the 
Orientals say, I was generally asked, in the first place, what 
I thought of the captui'e of Siunter, and in the second, what 
England would do when the news reached the other side. 
Already the Carolinians regard the Northern States as an 
alien and detested enemy, and entertain, or profess, an im- 
mense affection for Great Britain. 

When we had shipped all our passengers, nine tenths of 
them in uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing, 
the whistle blew, and the steamer sidUid off from the quay 
into the yellowisii muddy water of the Ashley River, which 



FORT SUMTER. 103 

is a creek from the sea, with a streamlet running into the 
head waters some distance up. 

The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant 
and is low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of 
brilliant vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with 
creeks, which divide it into islands, so that passages out to sea 
exist between some of them for light craft, though the navi- 
gation is perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a spur or 
promontory between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and 
the land behind it is divided in the same manner by similar 
creeks, and is sandy and light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine 
crops, and trees of magnificent vegetation. The steeples, the 
domes of public buildings, the rows of massive wai'ehouses 
and cotton stores on the wharves, and the bright colors of the 
houses, render the appearance of Charleston, as seen from the 
river front, rather imposing. From the mastheads of the few 
large vessels in harbor floated the Confederate flag. Look- 
ing to our right, the same standard was visible, waving on the 
low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged 
in reducing Sumter. 

That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of 
us now, rising up out of the water near the middle of the 
passage out to sea between James' Island and Sullivan's Is- 
land. It struck me at first as being like one of the smaller 
forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much dimin- 
ished its importance ; the material is brick, not stone, and the 
size of the place is exaggerated by the low background, and 
by contrast with the sea-line. The land contracts on both 
sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris' Island, called 
" Cumming's Point," running out on the left. There is a sim- 
ilar promontory from Sullivan's Island, on which is erected 
Fort Moultrie, on the right from the sea entrance. Castle 
Pinckney, which stands on a small island at the exit of the 
Cooper Rivei', is a place of no importance, and it was too far 
from Sumter to take any share in the bombardment : the same 
remarks apply to Fort Johnson on James' Island, on the right 
bank of the Ashley River below Cliarleston. The works 
which did the mischief were the batteries of sand on Morris' 
Island, at Cumming's Point, and Fort Moultrie. The floating 
battery, covered with railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and 
could not have contributed much to the I'esult. 

As we approached Morris' Island, which is an accumulation 
of sand covered with mounds of the same material, on which 



104 MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

there is a scanty vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes, 
we could perceive a few tents in the distance among the sand- 
hills. The sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black parpapet, 
with guns peering through port-holes as if from a ship's side, 
lay before us. Around them men were swarming like ants, 
and a crowd in uniform were gathered on the beach to receive 
us as we landed from the boat of the steamer, all eager for 
news and provisions and newspapers, of which an immense 
flight immediately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets 
crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented any unau- 
thorized persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse 
gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow fac- 
ings, uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto- 
tree. Their unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The 
soldiers lounging about were mostly tall, well-grown men, young 
and old, some with the air of gentlemen ; others coarse, long- 
haired fellows, without any semblance of military bearing, but 
full of fight, and burning with enthusiasm, not unaided, in 
some instances, by coarser stimulus. 

The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot 
wind blew the fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in 
minute clouds inside eyelids, nostrils, and clothing ; but it was 
necessary to visit the batteries, so on we trudged into one and 
out of another, walked up parapets, examined profiles, looked 
along guns, and did everything that could be required of us. 
The result of the examination was to establish in my mind the 
conviction, that if the commander of Sumter had been allowed 
to open his .guns on the island, the first time he saw an indica- 
tion of throwing up a battery against hira, he could have saved 
his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the opposite side, 
could have been readily demolished by Sumter. The design 
of the works was better than. their execution — the sand-bags 
were rotten, the sand not properly revetted or banked up, and 
the traverses imperfectly constructed. The barbette guns of 
the fort looked into many of the embrasures, and commanded 
them. 

Tlie whole of the island was full of life and excitement. 
Officers were galloj)ing about as if on a field-day or in action. 
Commissariat carts were toiling to and fro between the beach 
and the camps, and sounds of laughter and revelling came 
from the tents. These were pitched without order, and were 
of all shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude 
cliarcoal drawings outside, and inscriptions such as " The 



CAMP SCENES. 105 

Live Tigers," " Rattlesnake's-hole," " Yankee Smashers," &c. 
The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable state, and on 
calling the attention of the medical officer who was with me, 
to the danger arising from such a condition of things, he said 
with a sigh, " I know it all. But we can do nothing. Remem- 
ber they're all volunteers, and do just as they please." 

In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all 
comers. Cases of champagne and claret, French pates, and 
the like, were piled outside the canvas walls, when there was 
no room for them inside. In the middle of these excited 
gatherings I felt like a man in the full possession of his senses 
coming in late to a wine party. " Won't you drink with me, 
sir, to the — (something awful) — of Lincoln and all Yan- 
kees ? " " No ! if you'll be good enough to excuse me." 
" Well, I think you're the only Englishman who won't." 
Our Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the 
Bobadil style — hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they 
fondly believe to be theirs by hereditary riglit. They assume 
that the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as the Lord 
Chancellor sits on a pack of wool. 

In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men, 
opening claret, and mixing " cup " in large buckets ; whilst 
others were helping the servants to set out a table for a ban- 
quet to one of theJr generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke, 
clamoi-, toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of friendship ! 
Many were the excuses made for the more demonstrative of the 
Edonian youths by their friends. " Tom is a little cut, sir ; 
but he's a splendid fellow — he's worth half-a-million of dol- 
lars." This reference to a money standard of value was not 
unusual or perhaps unnatural, but it Avas made repeatedly; 
and I was told wonderful tales of the riches of men who were 
lounging round, dressed as privates, some of whom at that 
season, in years gone by, were looked for at the watering 
places as the great lions of American fashion. But Secession 
is the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it ; old ladies |)iny 
for it ; young men are dying to fight tor it ; old men are reaily 
to demonstrate it. The founder of the school was St. Caliioun. 
Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder and lire. 
States' Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching, and 
the Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its 
exposition. The utter contempt and loathing for the venerat- 
ed Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United 
States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these 
5 * 



106 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

people, cannot be conceived by any one who has not seen them. 
I am more satisfied than ever that the Union can never be re- 
stored as it was, and that it has gone to pieces, never to be put 
togetlier again, in the old shape, at all events, by any power 
on earth. 

After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and 
fine sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach, 
where we took boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The 
Confederate flag rose above the walls. On near approach the 
marks of tlie shot against the pain coupe, and the embrasures 
near the salient were visible enough ; but the damage done to 
the hard brickwork was trifling, except at the angles : the edges 
of the para])ets were ragged and pock-marked, and the quay 
wall was rifted here and tliere by shot; but no injury of a 
kind to render the work untenable could be made out. The 
greatest damage infiicted was, no doubt, the burning of the 
barracks, which were culpably erected inside the fort, close 
to the flank wall facing Cunnning's Point. 

As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall, powerful- 
looking man came through tlie shattered gateway, and with 
uneven steps strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which 
was waiting to receive him, and into which he jumped and 
rowed off. Recognizing one of my companions as he passed 
oiu" boat he suddenly stood up, and with a leap and a scramble 
tumbled in anumg us, to the imminent danger of upsetting 
the party. Our new friend was dressed in the blue frock-coat 
of a civilian, round which he had tied a red silk sash — his 
waistbelt sui)ported a straight sword, something like those 
worn with Coin-t dress. His muscular neck was surrounded 
witli a loosely-fastened silk liaudkerchief; and wild masses of 
black hair, tinged with gray, fell from under a civilian's hat 
over his collar; his unstrai)ped trousers were gathered up 
high on his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with for- 
midable brass s|)urs. But his face was one not to be forgotten 
— a straight, broad brow, from which the hair rose up like the 
vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows — a mouth 
coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw — a thick ar- 
gumentative nose — a new growth of scrubby beard and mus- 
tache — these were relieved by eyes of wonderful depth and 
liidit. such as I never saw before but in the head of a wild 
beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright 
into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the 
keeper is coming round, you will form some notion of the ex- 



COLONEL WIGFALL. 107 

pression I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm — with a 
well of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye 
pitiless in anger, which now and then sought to conceal its 
expression beneath half-closed lids, and then burst out with an 
angry glare, as if disdaining concealment. 

This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then 
of his own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator 
from Texas in the tlnited States — a good type of the men 
whom the institutions of the country produce or throw off — 
a remarkable man, noted for his ready, natural eloquence ; his 
exceeding ability as a quick, bitter debater ; the acerbity of his 
taunts; and his readiness for personal encounter. To the last 
he stood in his place in the Senate at Washington, when 
nearly every other Southern man had seccdetl, lashing witli a 
venomous and instant tongue, and covering witli insults, 
ridicule, and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, 
and other Republicans : never missing a sitting of the House, 
and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or at gam- 
bling tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter 
was at its height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost 
to silence, a small boat put off from the shore, and steered 
through the sliot and the splashing waters right for the walls. 
It bore the Colonel and a negro oarsman. Holding up a white 
handkercliief on the end of his sword, Wigfall landed on the 
quay, clainbered through an embrasure, and presented himself 
before the astonished Federals with a pro|)osal to surrender, 
quite unauthorized, and " on his own hook," which led to the 
final capitulation of Major Anderson. 

I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been 
paying his respects sans borrus to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he 
was decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speecli ; but his 
head was quite clear, and he was determined I should know 
all about his exploit. Major Whiting desired to siiow me 
round the work, but he had no ciiance. " Here is where I got 
in," quoth Colonel Wigfall. " I found a Yankee standing here 
by the ti'averse, out of the way of our sliot. He was pretty 
well scared when he saw me, but I told liim not to be alarmed, 
but to take me to the officers. There they were, huddled up 
in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells were 
tumbling into the yard, and bursting like — " &c. (The Colonel 
used strong illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.) 
Major Whiting shook his military head, and said something un- 
civil tome, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels and the 



108 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial Senator — I forgot 
to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of having 
killed more than half a dozen men in duels — (I had an escape 
of being another) — conducted me through the casemates with 
uneven steps, stopping at every traverse to expatiate on some 
phase of his personal experiences, with his sword dangling 
between his legs, and spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers' 
blankets. 

In my letter I described the real extent of the damage in- 
flicted, and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the bat- 
teries thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the Unit- 
ed States officers in the fort were mightily amused at them, 
and anticipated easy work in enfilading, ricocheting, and batter- 
ing them to pieces, if they ever dared to open fire. One 
morning, however, Capt. Foster, to whom really belongs the 
credit of putting Sumter into a tolerable condition of defence 
with the most limited means, was unpleasantly surprised by 
seeing through his glass a new work in the best possible situa- 
tion for attacking the place, growing up under the strenuous 
labors of a band of negroes. " I knew at once," he said, " the 
rascals had got an engineer at last." In fact, the Carolinians 
were actually talking of an escalade when the officers of the 
regular army, who had " seceded," came down and took the 
direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very 
difierent results. 

There was a working party of volunteers clearing away 
the rubbish in the place. It was evident they were not accus- 
tomed to labor. And on asking why negroes were not em- 
ployed, I was informed : " The niggers would blow us all up, 
they're so stupid ; and the State would have to pay the owners 
for any of them who were killed and injui'ed." " In one re- 
spect, then, white men are not so valuable as negroes ? " 
" Yes, sir, — that's a fact." 

Very few shell craters were visible in the terreplein ; the 
military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously 
on the parapet platforms, over which shells had been burst as 
heavily as could be, to prevent the manning of the barbette 
guns. A very small affair, indeed, that slielling of Fort 
Sumter. And yet who can tell what may arise from it? 
" Well, sir," exclaimed one of my companions, " I thank God 
for it, if it's only because we are beginning to have a history 
for Europe. The universal Yankee nation swallowed us up." 

Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and 



COLONEL WIGFALL. 109 

trouble more recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling 
themselves against the grim, black future, as the Cavaliers 
under Rupert may have rushed against the grim, black Iron- 
sides. AVill they carry the image farther ? Well ! Tlie 
exploration of Sumter was finished at last, not till we had vis- 
ited the officers of the garrison, who lived in a windowlesp, 
shattered room, reaithed by a crumbling staircase, and who 
produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and 
boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay. 
Fie said : " I have not received a cent since I came to Charles- 
ton for this business." But Major Whiting, some days after- 
wards, told me he had not got a dollar on account of his pay, 
thougli on leaving the United States army he had abandoned 
nearly all his means of subsistence. These gentlemen were 
quite satisfied it would all be right eventually ; and no one 
questioned the power or inclination of the Government, which 
had just been inaugui-ated under such strange auspices, to 
perpetuate its principles and reward its servants. 

After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we 
were rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris' 
Island. The original intention of tlie officers was to carry us 
over to Fort Moultrie, on the opposite side of the Channel, 
and to examine it and tlie floating iron battery ; but it was too 
late to do so when we got oil", and the steainer only ran across 
and swept around homewards by the other shore. Below, in 
the cabin, there was spread a lunch or quasi dinner ; and the 
party of Senators, past and present, aides-de-camp, journalists, 
and flaneurs, were not indisposed to join it. For me there 
was only one circumstance wlii(;li marred the pl(;asure of that 
agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who iiad not 
sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his 
exultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a type 
of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with the 
Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification 
of the fashion in which they would bear their " whipping." 
Thence, by a natural digression, he adverted to tlie inevitable 
consequences of the magnificent outburst of Southern indig- 
nation against the Yankees on all the nations of the world, and 
to the innnediate action of England in the matter as soon as 
the news came. Suddenly reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose 
name he loaded with obloquy, he spoke of Lord Lyons in terms 
so coarse, that, forgetting the condition of the speaker, I re- 
sented the language applied to the English Minister, in a very 



110 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

unmistakable manner ; and then rose and left the cabin. In 
a moment I was followed on deck by Senator Wigfall : his 
manner much calmer, his hair brushed back, his eye sparkling. 
There was nothinj^ left to be desired in his apologies, which 
were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Man- 
ning, Major Whiting, and Senator Chestnut, and others, to 
whom I expressed my complete contentment with Mr. Wig- 
fall's explanations. And so we returned to Cliarleston. The 
Colonel and Senator, however, did not desist from his atten- 
tions to the good — or bad — things below. It was a strange 
scene — these men, hot and red-handed in rebellion, with their 
lives on the cast, trifling and jesting, and carousing as if they 
had no care on earth — all excepting the gentlemen of the 
local press, who were assiduous in note and food-taking. It 
was near nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charles- 
ton. The city was indicated by the blaze of lights, and by the 
continual roll of drums, and the noisy music, and the yelling 
cheers which rose above its streets. As I walked towards the 
hotel, the evening drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling 
through the streets in all haste, in order to escape the patrol 
and the last peal of the curfew bell, swept by me ; and as I 
passed the guard-house of the police, one of my friends pointed 
out the armed sentries pacing up and down before the porch, 
and the gleam of arms in the room inside. Further on, a 
squad of mounted horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a by- 
street, and with jingling spurs and sabres disappeared in the 
dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol. They scour the 
country around the city, and meet at certain places dui'ing the 
night to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus ! these 
are signs of trouble. 

" Integer vitae, scelerisque purus 
Non eget Mauri jaculis noque arcu, 
Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, 
Fusee, pliaretrA." 

But Fuscus is going to his club ; a kindly, pleasant, chatty, 
card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to 
an old white-wooUed negro steward or head-waiter — a slave 
— as a proof which I cannot accept, with the curfew tolling 
in my eai"s, of the excellencies of the domestic institution. 
The club was filled with officers ; one of them, Mr. Ransorae 
Calhoun,* asked me what was the object which most struck me 
* Since killed in a duel by Mr. Rhett. 



MENACING THE NORTH. Ill 

at Morris' Island ; I tell him — as was indeed the case — that it 
was a letter-copying machine, a case of official stationery, and 
a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach, just landed and ready 
to grow with the strength of tiie young independence. 

But listen ! There is a great tumult, as of many voices 
coming up the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a 
speech-making from the front of the hotel. SOch an agitated, 
lively multitude ! How they cheer the pale, frantic man, lim- 
ber and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and clinched fists, who 
is perorating on the balcony ! " What did he say ? " " Who 
is he ? " " Why it's he again ! " " That's Roger Pryor — he 
says that if them Yankee trash don't listen to reason, and 
stand from under, we'll march to the North and dictate the 
terms of peace in Faneuil Hall ! Yes, sir — and so we will 
certa-i-n su-re ! " " No matter, for all that ; we have shown 
we can whip the Yankees whenever we meet them — at 
Washington or down here." How much I heard of all this 
to-day — how much more this evening ! The hotel as noisy 
as ever — moi'e men in uniform arriving every few minutes, 
and the hall and passages crowded with tall, good-looking 
Carolinians. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Slaves, their Masters and Mistresses — Hotels — Attempted boat- 
journey to Fort Moultrie — Excitement at Charleston against 
New York — Preparations for war — General Beauregard — 
Southern opinion as to the policy of the North, and estimate of 
the eflect of the war on England, through the cotton market — 
Aristocratic feeling in the South. 

April ISth. — It is as though we woke up in a barrack. 
No ! There is the distinction, that in the passages slaves are 
moving up and down witii cups of iced milk or water for their 
mistresses in the early morning, cleanly dressed, neatly clad, 
with the conceptions of Parisian millinery adumbrated to their 
condition, and transmitted by the white race, hovering round 
their heads and bodies. They sit outside the doors, and chatter 
in the passages ; and as tlie Irish waiter brings in my hot 
water lor shaving, there is that odd, round, oily, half-strangled, 
clmckling, gobble of a laugh peculiar to the female Ethiop, 
coming in tiirough the doorway. 

Later in the day, their mistresses sail out from the inner 
harbors, and launcli all their sails along the passages, down 
the stairs, and into the long, hot, fluffy salle-iVnianger, where, 
blackened with flies which dispute the viands, they take their 
tremendous meals. They are j)ale, pretty, svelte — just as I 
was about to say they were rather small, there rises before me 
the recollection of one Titanic dame — a Carolinian Juno, 
with two lovely peacock daughters — and I refrain from gener- 
alizing. Exceedingly proud these ladies are said to be — for 
a generation or two of family sullicc in this new country, it 
properly supported by the possession of negroes and acres, to 
give pride of birth, and all the grandeur which is derived from 
raising raw produce, cereals, and cotton — sua terra. Their 
enemies say that the grandfathers of some of these noble 
people were mere pirates and smugglers, who dealt in a cava- 
lier tashion with the laws and with the flotsam and jetsam of 
fortune on the seas and reefs hereabouts. Cotton suddenly — 



MAJOR WHITING. 113 

almost unnaturally, as far as the ordinary laws of commerce 
are concerned, grew up whilst land was clieap, and slaves were 
of uiodenvte price — the pirates, and piratesses had control of 
both, and in a night the gourd swelled and grew to a prodig- 
ious size. These are Northern stories. What the Southerners 
say of their countrymen and women in the upper part of (his 
"blessed Union" I have writttm for the edification of peopli 
at home. 

The tables in the eating-room are disposed in long rows, or 
detached so as to suit private parties. Wiien I was coming 
down to Charleston, one of my fellow-passengers told me he 
was quite shocked the first time he saw white people acting as 
servants ; but no such scruples existed in tlie Mills House, for 
the waiters were all Irish, except one or two Germans. The 
carte is much the same at all American hotels, the variations 
depending on local luxuries or tastes. Marvellous exceedingly 
is it to see the quantities of butter, treacle, and farinaceous 
matters prepared in the heaviest form — of fish, of many 
meats, of eggs scrambled or scarred or otherwise prepared, 
of iced milk, and water, which an American will consume in a 
few minutes in the mornings. There is, {)0sitiv(ily, no rest at 
these meals — no repose. The guests are ever passing in and 
out of the room, chairs are forever pushed to and fro wilii a 
harsh grating noise that sets the teeth on edge, and there is a 
continual clatter of plates and met^d. Every man is reading 
his paper, or discussing the news with his neighbor. I was 
introduced to a vast number of people and was asked many 
questions respecting my views of Sumter, or what I thought 
"old Abe and Seward would do?" The proclamation calling 
out 75,000 men issued by said old Abe, they treat with tlie 
most profound contempt or unsparing ridicule, as the case may 
be. Five out of six of the men at table wore uniforms this 
morning. 

Having made the acquaintance of several warriors, as well 
as that of a Russian gentleman, Baron Sternberg, who was 
engaged in looking about him in Charleston, and was, like most 
foreigners, impressed with the conviction that actum est de Re- 
publicd, I went out with Major Wliiting* and Mr. Ward, tlie 
former of whom was anxious to show me Fort Moultrie and 
the left side of the Chaun(;l, in continuation of my trip yester- 
day. It was arranged that we siiould go off as quietly as pos- 
sible, " so as to prevent the newspapers knowing anything 
* Now Confederate General. 



114 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

about it." The Major has a great dislike to the gentlemen of 
the press, and General Beauregard had sent orders for the 
staff-boat to be prepared, so as to be quiet and private, but the 
fates were against us. On going down to the quay, we learn- 
ed that a gentleman had come down with an olficer and had 
gone off in our skiff, the boat-keeper§ believing they were the 
persons for whom it was intended. In fact, our Russian friend, 
Baron Sternberg, had stolen a march upon us. 

After a time, the Major succeeded in securing the services 
of the very smallest, most untrustworthy, and ridiculous-look 
ing craft ever seen by mortal eyes. If Charon had put a two ' 
horse power engine into his skiff, it might have borne some 
resemblance to this egregious cymbalus, whicli had once been 
a flat-bottomed, opened-decked cutter or galley, into the midst 
of which the owner had forced a small engine and paddle- 
wdieels, and at the stern had erected a roofed caboose, or 
oblong pantry, sacred to oil-cans and cockroaches. The crew 
consisted of the first captain and the second captain, a lad of 
tender years, and that was all. Into the pantry we scrambled, 
and sat down knee to knee, whilst the engine was getting up 
its steam : a very obstinate and anti-caloric little engine it 
was — puffing and squeaking, leaking, and distilling drops of 
water, and driving out blasts of steam in unexpected places. 

As long as we lay at the quay all was right. The Major 
was supremely happy, for he could talk about Thackeray and 
his writings — a theme of which he never tired — nay, on 
which his enthusiasm reached the height of devotional fervor. 
Did I ever know any one like Major Pendennis? Was it 
known who Becky Sharp was ? Who was the O'Mulligan ? 
These questions were mere hooks on which to hang rhapsodies 
and delighted dissertation. He might have got down as far as 
Pendennis liim-^elf, when a lively swash of water flying over 
the preposterous little gunwales, and dashing over our boots 
into the cabin, announced that our bark was under way. 
There is, we were told, for several months in tlie year, a brisk 
breeze from the southward and eastward in and off Charles- 
ton Harbor, and there was to-day a small joggle in the water 
wiiich would not have affected anything floating except our 
stpamer ; but as we proceeded down the narrow channel by 
(^)'^tle Pincknev, tho little boat rolled as if «hf> would c-.w- 
size every moment, and made no pretence at doing more than 
a mile an hour at her best; and it became evident that our 
voyage would be neither pleasant, prosperous, nor speedy. 



AN ABORTIVE EXCURSION. 115 

Still the Major went on between the lurches, and drew his 
feet up out of the water, in order to have " a quiet chat," as 
he said, " about my favoi'ite author." My companion and my- 
self could not condense ourselves or foreshorlen our nether 
limbs quite so deftly. 

Standing out from the shelter towards Sumter, the sea 
came rolling on our beam, making the miserable craft oscil- 
late as if some great hand had caught her by the funnel — 
Yankeeice, smokestack — and was roUing her backwards and 
forwards, as a preliminary to a final keel over. The water 
came in plentifully, and the cabin was flooded with a small 
sea : the latter partook of the lively character of the external 
fluid, and made violent eiForts to get overboard to join it, which 
generally were counteracted by the better sustained and 
directed attempts of the external to get inside. The captain 
seemed very unhappy ; the rest of the crew — our steerer — 
had discovered that the steamer would not steer at all, and 
that we were rolling like a log on the water. Certainly 
neither Pinckney, nor Sumter, nor Moultrie altered their 
relative bearings and distances towards us for half an hour or 
so, though they bobbed up and down continuously. " But it 
is," said the Major, " in the character of Colonel Newcome 
that Thackeray has, in my opinion, exhibited the greatest 
amount of power ; the tenderness, simplicity, love, manliness, 

and " Here a walloi)ing muddy-green wave came " all 

aboard," and the cymbalus gave decided indications of turning 
turtle. We wei'e wet and misei-able, and two hours or more 
had now passed in making a couple of miles. Tlie tide was 
setting more strongly against us, and just off Moultrie, in the 
tideway between its walls and Sumter, could be seen the heads 
of the sea-horses unpleasantly crested. I know not what ot 
eloquent disquisition I lost, for the Major was evidently in 
his finest moment and on his best subject, but I ventured to 
suggest that we should bout ship and return — and thus arous- 
ed him to a sense of his situation. And so we wore round — 
a very delicate operation, which, by judicious management in 
getting side bumps of the sea at favorable movements, we 
were enabliid to effect in some fifteen or twenty minutes ; 
and then we became so parboiled by the heat I'rom the engine, 
that conversation was imijossible. 

How glad we were to land once more I need not say. As 
I gave the captain a small votive tablet of metal, he said, 
" I'm thinkin' it's very well yes turned back. Av we'd gone 



116 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

any further, devil aback ever we'd have come." " Why didn't 
you say so before ?" " Sure I didn't litce to spoil the trip." 
My gifted countryman and I parted to meet no more. 

Second and third editions and extras ! News of Secession 
meetings and of Union meetings ! Every one is filled with 
indignation against the city of New York, on account of the 
way in which the news of the reduction of Foi't Sumter has 
been received there. New England has acted just as was ex- 
pected, but better things were anticipated on the part of the 
Empire City. There is no sign of shrinking from a contest : 
on the contrary, the Carolinians are full of eagerness to test 
their force in tlie field. " Let them come ! " is their boastful 
mot dordre. 

The anger which is reported to exist in the North only adds 
to the fury and animosity of the Carolinians. They are de- 
termined now to act on their sovereign rights as a State, cost 
what it may, and uphold the ordinance of secession. The 
answers of several State Governors to President Lincoln's de- 
mand for troops, have delighted our friends. Beriah Magoffin, 
of Kentucky, declares he won't give any men for such a 
wicked purpose ; and another gubernatorial dignitary laconi- 
cally replied to the demand for so many thousand soldiers, 
" Nary one." Letcher, Governor of Virginia, has also sent a 
refusal. From the North comes news of mass-meetings, of 
hauling down Secession colors, mobbing Secession papers, of 
military bodies turning out, banks subscribing and lending. 

Jefferson Davis has met President Lincoln's proclamation 
by a counter manifesto, issuing letters of marque and reprisal 
— on all sides preparations for war. The Southern agents are 
buying steamers, but they fear the Northern States will use 
their navy to enforce a blockade, which is much dreaded, as it 
will cut off supplies and injure the commerce, on wliich they 
so much depend. Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know any- 
thing of the feeling of the South, or he would not be so con- 
fident as he was that all would blow over, and that the States, 
deprived of the care and fostering influences of the general 
Government, would get tired of their Secession ordinances, 
and of their experiment to maintain a national life, so that the 
United States will be reestablished before long. 

I went over and saw General Beauregard at his quarters. 
He was busy with papers, orderlies, and despatches, and the 
outer room was crowded with officers. His present task, he 



GENERAL BEAUREGARD. 117 

told rae, was to put Sumter in a state of defence, and to dis- 
arm the works bearing on it, so as to get their fire dii-ected on 
the harbor-approaches, as " the North in its madness " might 
attempt a naval attack on Charleston. His manner of trans- 
acting business is clear and rapid. Two vases filled with 
flowers on his table, fianking his maps and plans ; and a little 
hand bouquet of roses, geraniums, and scented flowers lay on 
a letter which he was writing as I came in, by way of paper 
weight. He offered me every assistance and facility, relying, 
of course, on my strict observance of a neutral's duty. I 
reminded him once more, that as the representative of an P^ng- 
lish journal, it would be my duty to write freely to England 
respecting what I saw ; and that I must not be held account- 
able if on the return of my letters to America, a month after 
they were written, it was found they contained information to 
which circumstances might attach an objectionable character. 
The General said, " I quite understand you. We must take 
our chance of that, and leave you to exei'cise your discre- 
tion." 

In the evening I dined with our excellent Consul, Mr. 
Bunch, who had a small and very agreeable party to meet 
me. One very venerable old gentleman, named Huger (pro- 
nounced as Hugee), was particularly interesting in appearance 
and conversation. He formei'ly held some official appointment 
under the Federal Government, but had gone out with his 
State, and had been confirmed in his appointment by the Con- 
federate Government. Still he was not happy at the pros- 
pect before him or his country. " I have lived too long," he 
exclaimed; "I should have died ere these evil days arrived." 
What thoughts, indeed, must have troubled his mind when he 
refiected that his country was but little older than himself; 
for he was one who had shaken hands with the framers of the 
Declaration of Independence. But though the tears rolled 
down his cheeks when he spoke of the prospect of civil war, 
there was no symptom of apprehension for the result, or in- 
deed of any regret for the contest, which he regarded as the 
natural consequence of the insults, injustice, and aggression 
of the North against Southern rights. 

Only one of the company, a most lively, quaint, witty old 
lawyer named Petigru, dissented from the doctrines of Seces- 
sion ; but he seems to be treated as an amiable, harmless per- 
son, who has a weakness of intellect or a "bee in his bonnet" 
on this particular matter. 



118 RrSf DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

It was scarcely very agreeable to ray host or myself to find 
that no considerations were believed to be of consequence in 
reference to England except her material interests, and that 
these worthy gentlemen regarded her as a sort of appanage of 
their cotton kingdom. " Why, sir, we have only to shut off 
your supply of cotton for a few weeks, and we can create a 
revolution in Great Britain. There are four millions of your 
people depending on us for their bread, not to speak of the 
many millions of dollars. No, sir, we know that England 
must recognize us," &c. 

Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all Great Britain 
to the Southern eye. I confess the tone of my friends irri- 
tated me. I said so to Mr. Bunch, who laughed and re- 
marked, " You'll not mind it when you get as much accus- 
tomed to this sort of thing as I am." I could not help saying, 
that if Great Britain were such a sham as they supposed, the 
sooner a hole was drilled in her, and the whole empire sunk 
under water, the better for the world, the cause of truth, and 
of liberty* 

These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists. 
Slavery perhaps has aggravated the tendency to look at all the 
world through parapets of cotton bales and rice bags, and though 
more stately and less vulgar, the worshippers here are not less 
prostrate before the " almighty dollar" than the Northerners. 
Again cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, 
grows its climax in the profession from nearly every one of 
the guests, that he would prefer a return to British rule to any 
reunion with New England. " The names in South Carolina 
show our origin — Charleston, and Ashley, and Cooper, &c. 
Our Gadsden, Sumter and Pinckney were true cavaliers," &c. 
They did not say anything about Pedee, or Tombigbee, or Sul- 
livan's Island, or the like. We all have our little or big weak- 
nesses. 

I see no trace of cavalier descent in the names of Huger, 
Rose, Manning, Chestnut, Pickens ; but there is a profession 
of faith in the cavaliers and their cause among them because 
it is fashionable in Carolina. They affect the agricultural 
faith and the belief of a landed gentry. It is not only over 
the wineglass — why call it cup ? — that they ask for a Prince 
to reign over them ; I have heard the wish repeatedly ex- 
pressed within the last two days that we could spare them one 
of our young Princes, but never in jest or in any frivolous 
manner. 



CARE OF SLAVES. 119 

On my way home again, I saw the sentries on their march, 
the mounted patrols starting on their ride, and other evidences 
that though the slaves are " the happiest and most contented 
race in the world," they require to be taken care of like less 
favored mortals. The city watch-house is filled every night 
with slaves, who are confined there till reclaimed by their 
owners, whenever they ai'e found out after nine o'clock, p. m., 
without special passes or permits. Guns are firing for the 
Ordinance of Secession of Virginia. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Charleston ; the Market-place — Irishmen at Charleston — Governor 
Pickens : his political economy and theories — Newspaper offices 
and counting-houses — Humors as to the war policy of the South. 

April \^th. — An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on 
the broad sandy street of Charleston with injmense power, and 
when the wind blows down the thoroughfare it sends befoi-e 
it vast masses of hot dust. The houses are generally detached, 
surrounded by small gardens, well provided with verandas to 
pi'otect the windows from the glare, and are sheltered with 
creepers and shrubs and flowering plants, through which flit 
humming-birds and fly-catchers. In some places the streets 
and roadways are covered with planking, and as long as the 
wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon. 

I paid a visit to the markets ; the stalls are presided over by 
negroes, male and female ; the colored people engaged ip sell- 
ing and buying are well clad ; the butchers' meat by no means 
tempting to the eye, but the fruit and vegetable stalls well 
filled. Fish is scarce at present, as the boats are not permit- 
ted to proceed to sea lest they should be whipped up by the ex- 
pected Yankee cruisers, or carry malecontents to communicate 
with the enemy. Around the flesh-market there is a skirling 
crowd of a kind of turkey-buzzard ; tliese are useful as scaven- 
gers and are protected by law. They do their nasty work 
very zealously, descending on the oflf'al thrown out to them 
with the peculiar crawling, puffy, soft sort of flight which is 
the badge of all their tribe, and contending with wing and beak 
against the dogs which dispute the viands with the harpies. 
It is curious to watch the expi'ession of their eyes as with out- 
stretched necks they peer down from tlie ledge of the market 
roof on the stalls and scrutinize the operations of the butchers 
below. They do not prevent a disagreeable odor in the 
vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a fine and 
active breed of rats. 

Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day. 



GOVERNOR PICKENS. 121 

One very ragged regiment which had been some time at Mor- 
ris' Island halted in the shade near me, and I was soon made 
aware they consisted, for the great majority, of Irishmen. 
The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed largely to the pop- 
ulation of Charleston. In the principal street there is a 
large and fine red-sandstone building with the usual Greek- 
Yankee-composite portico, over which is emblazoned the 
crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a St. 
Patrick's Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also 
attest the Hibernian presence. 

I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few mo- 
ments' conversation with him. He told me that an immense 
deal depended on Virginia, and that as yet the action of the 
people in that State had not been as prompt as might have 
been hoped, for the President's proclamation was a declaration 
of war against the South, in which all would be ultimately in- 
volved. He is going to Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jeffer- 
son Davis. I have no doubt there is to be some movement 
made in Virginia. Whiting is under orders to repair there, 
and he hinted that he had a task of no common nicety and diffi- 
culty to perform. He is to visit the forts which had been seized 
on the coast of North Carolina, and probably will have a look 
at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal authorities 
should have neglected to secure this place. 

Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Picikens, to 
whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp. 
His palace was a very humble shed-like edifice with large 
rooms, on the doors of which were pasted pieces of paper 
with sundry high -reading inscriptions, such as "Adjutant 
General's Dept.," " Quartermaster-General's Dept.," " Attor- 
ney-General of State," &c. ; and through the doorways could 
be seen men in uniform, and grave, earnest people busy at 
their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spittoons. The 
governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a large, important- 
looking face, with watery eyes and flabby features, was seated 
in a barrack-like room, furnished in the plainest way, and 
decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington, 
close to which was the " Ordinance of Secession of the State 
of South Carolina" of last year. 

Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his sub- 
jects; and I was amused by a little middy, who described with 
much unction the Governor's alarm on his visit to Fort Pick- 
ens, when he was told that there were a number of live shells 
6 



1-22 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and a quantity of powder still in the place. He is said to 
have commenced one of his speeches with " Born insensible 
to fear," &c. To me the Governor was very courteous ; but I 
confess the heat of the day did not dispose me to listen with 
due attention to a lecture on political economy with which he 
favored me. I was told, however, that he had practised with 
success on the late Czar when he was United States Minister 
to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer his immediate 
staff to escape from having their minds improved on the rela- 
tions of capital to labor, and on the vicious condition of capital 
and labor in the North. 

" In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they 
have maximized the hostile condition of opposed interests in 
the accumulation of capital and in the employment of labor, 
whilst we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of our do- 
mestic institution, have minimized their opposition and max- 
imized the identity of interest by the investment of capital in 
the laborer himself," and so on, or something like it. I could 
not help remarking it struck me there was " another difference 
betwixt the North and the South which he had overlooked, — 
the capital of the North is represented by gold, silver, notes, 
and other exponents, which are good all the world over and 
are recognized as such; your capital has power of locomotion, 
and ceases to exist the moment it crosses a geographical line." 
" That remark, sir," said the Governor, " requires that I 
should call your attention to the fundamental principles on 
which the abstract idea of capital should be formed. In order 
to clear the ground, let us first inquire into the soundness of 

the ideas put forward by your Adam Smith." 1 liad to 

look at my wat(;h and to promise I would come back to be 
illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to keep 
an engagement with myself to write letters by (he next mail. 

The Governor writes very good proclamations, neverthe- 
less, and his confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. " If 
we stand alone, sir, we must win. They can't whip us." A 
gentleman named Pringle, for whom I had letters of intro- 
duction, has come to Charleston to ask me to his plantation, but 
there will be no boat from the port till Monday, and it is un- 
certain then wliether the blockading vessels, of which we hear 
so much, may not be down by that time. 

April 2Qth. — I visited the editors of the " Charleston Mercu- 
ry " and the " Charleston Courier " to-day at their offices. The 
Rhett family have been active agitators for secession, and it is 



AMONG THE CHARLESTONIANS. 198" 

said thej are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for 
neglecting their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard, 
ambitious man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to 
his English connections and predilections, and is intolerant of 
New England to the last degree. I received fi'om him, ere I 
left, a pamphlet on his life, career and services. In the news- 
paper offices there was nothing worthy of remark ; they were 
possessed of that obscurity which is such a characteristic of 
the haunts of journalism — the clouds in which the lightning 
is hiding. Thence to haunts more dingy still where Plutus 
lives — to the counting-houses of the cotton brokers, up many 
pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished with hard seats, en- 
gravings of celebrated clippers, advertisements of emigrant 
agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, spec- 
imens of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and clerks 
living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and ledgers, and 
tumblers of water. 

I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers, 
such as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others. 
With all it was the same story. Their young men were off 
to the wars — no business doing. In one office I saw an an- 
nouncement of a company for a direct communication by 
steamers between a southern port and Europe. " When do 
you expect tha^line to be opened ? " I asked. " The United 
States cruisers will surely interfere with it." " Why, I ex- 
pect, sir," replied the merchant, " that if those miserable 
Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton, 
you'll just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us. 
That will be before autumn, I think." It was in vain I 
assured him he would be disappointed. " Look out there," he 
said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton 
bales ; " there's the key will open all our ports, and put us into 
John Bull's strong box as well." 

I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospita- 
ble invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed, 
and Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under Secretary of State 
in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit 
his plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle's. 
We heard much the same conversation as usual, relieved by 
Mr. Trescot's sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly 
the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, unable to discover 
the solution and means of averting them. 

The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letch- 



124 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

er's proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is 
hinted that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of 
Black Republican vermin which haunt the capital, driven out. 
Agents are to be at once despatched to get up a navy, and 
every effort made to cfirry out the policy indicated in Jeff 
Davis's issue of letters of marque and reprisal. Norfolk har- 
bor is blocked up to prevent the United States ships getting 
away ; and at the same time we hear that the Unites States 
officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper's Ferry has re- 
tired into Pennsylvania, after desti'oying the place by fire. 
How " old John Brown " would have wondered and rejoiced, 
had he lived a few months longer ! 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception — By steamer to George- 
town — Description of the town — A country mansion — Masters 
and slaves — Slave diet — Humming-birds — Land irrigation — 
Negro quarters — Back to Georgetown. 

April list. — In the afternoon I went with Mr. Porcher 
Miles to visit a small farm and plantation, some miles from 
the citjj belonging to Mr. Crafts. Our arrival was unex- 
pected, but the planter's welcome was warm. Mrs. Crafts 
showed us round the place, of which the beauties were due to 
nature rather than to art, and so far the lady was the fitting 
mistress of the farm. 

We wandered through tangled brakes and thick Indian-like 
jungle, filled witii disagreeable insects, down to the edge of a 
small lagoon. The beach was perforated with small holes, in 
which Mrs. Crafts said little crabs, called " fiddlers " from their 
resemblance in petto to a performer on the fiddle make their 
abode ; but neither them nor " spotted snakes " did we see. 
And so to dinner, for which our hostess made needless ex- 
cuses. " I am afraid I shall have to ask you to eke out your 
dinner with potted meats, but I can answer for Mr. Crafts 
giving you a bottle of good old wine." " And what better, 
madam," quoth Mr. Miles, " what better can you offer a sol- 
dier ? What do we expect but grape and canister ? " 

Mr. Miles, who was formerly member of the United States 
Congress, and who has now migrated to the Confederate 
States of America, rendered himself conspicuous a few years 
ago when a dreadful visitation of yellow fever came upon 
Norfolk and destroyed one half of the inhabitants. At that 
terrible time, when all who could move were flying from the 
plague-stricken spot, Mr. Porclier Miles flew to it, visited the 
hospitals, tended the sick ; and although a weakly, delicate 
man, gave an example of such energy and courage as materi- 
ally tended to save those who were left. I never heard him 
say a word to indicate that he had been at Norfolk at all. 



126 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

At the rear of the cottage-like residence (to the best of my 
belief liiiilt of wood), in which tlie planter's family lived, was 
a small enclosure, surrounded by a palisade, containing a 
number of wooden sheds, which were the n(^gro quarters ; and 
after diinier, as we sat on the steps, the children were sent for 
to sing for us. They came very shyly, and by degrees ; first 
peeping round the corners and from behind ti-ees, oftentimes 
running away in spite of the orders of their haggard mammies, 
till tliey were chased, captured, and brought back by their 
elder brethren. They were ragged, dirty, shoeless urchins of 
both sexes ; the younger ones abdominous as infant Hindoos, 
and wild as if just caught. With much difficulty the elder 
children were dressed into line ; then they began to shuffle 
their flat feet, to clap their hands, and to drawl out in a mo- 
notonous sort of chant something about the " River Javvdam," 
after which Mrs. Ciafts rewarded them with lumps of sugar, 
which were as fruitful of disputes as the ai)ple of discord. A 
few fathers and mothers gazed at the scene from a distance. 

As we sat listening to the wonderful song of the mocking- 
birds, when these young Sybarites had retired, a great, big, 
burly red-faced gentleman, as like a Yorkshire farmer in high 
perfection as any man I ever saw in the old country, rode up 
to the door, and, after the usual ceremony of introduction and 
the collating of news, and the customary assurance " They 
can't whip us, sir ! " invited me then and there to attend a 
fete champetre at his residence, where there is a lawn famous 
for trees dating from the first settlement of the colony, and 
planted by this gentleman's ancestor. 

Trees are objects of great veneration in America if they 
are of any size. There are perhaps two reasons for this. In 
the first place, the indigenous forest trees are rarely of any 
great magnitude. In the second place, it is natural to Amer- 
icans to admire dimension and antiquity ; and a big tree grati- 
fies both organs — size and veneration. 

I must record an astonishing feat of this noble Carolinian. 
The heat of the evening was indubitably thirst-compelling, 
and we went in to " have a drink." Among other tilings on 
the table were a decanter of cognac and a fiask of white cura- 
90a. The planter filled a tumbler half full of brandy. " What's 
in that fiat bottle, Crafts ? " "That's white cura^oa." The 
[jlanter tasted a little, and having smacked his lips and ex- 
claimed " first-rate stuff'," proceeded to water his brandy with 
\t, and tossed off" a full brimmer of the mixture without any 



EXCURSION TO GEORGETOWN. 127 

remarkable ulterior results. They are a hard-headed race. 
I doubt if cavalier or puritan ever drank a more potent bum- 
per than our friend the big planter. 

April 22c?. — To-day was fixed for the visit to Mr. Prin- 
gle's plantation, whicli lies above Georgetown near the Pedee 
River. Our party, which consisted of Mr. Mitchell, an emi- 
nent lawyer of Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neighboring plan- 
ter, Mr. Ward, of New York, our host, and myself, were on 
board the Georgetown steamer at seven o'clock, a. m., and 
stai'ted with a quantity of commissariat stores, ammunition, 
and the like, for the use of the troops quartered along the 
coast. There was, of course, a large supply of newspapers 
also. At that early hour invitations to the " bar " were not 
uncommon, where the news was discussed by long-legged, 
grave, sallow men. There was a good deal of joking about 
" old Abe Lincoln's paper blockade," and the report that the 
Government had ordered their cruisers to treat the crews of 
Confederate privateers as " pirates " provoked derisive and 
menacing comments. Tlie full impulses of national life are 
breathing through the whole of (his people. There is their 
flag flying over Sumter, and the Confederate banner is waving 
on all the sand-forts and headlands which guard the a[)proach(;s 
to Charleston. 

A civil war and persecution have already commenced. 
"Suspected Abolitionists" are ill-treated in the South, and 
" Suspected Secessionists " are mobbed an<l beaten in the 
North. The news of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts, and 
the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Baltimore, has 
been received with great delight ; but some long-headed peo- 
ple see that it will only expose Baltimore and Maryland to 
the full force of the Northern States. The riot took place on 
the anniversary of Lexington. 

The " Nina " was soon in open sea, steering northwards 
and keeping four miles from shore in order to clear the shoals 
and banks which fringe the low sandy coasts, and effectually 
prevent even light gunboats covering a descent by their ord- 
nance. This was one of the reasons why the Federal fleet 
did not make any attempt to relieve Fort Sumter during the 
engagement. On our way out we could see the holes made 
in the large hotel and other buildings on Sullivan's Island be- 
hind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from the fort, which caused 
terror among the negroes " miles away." There was no sign 
of any blockading vessel, but look-out parties were posted 



128 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

along the beach, and as the skipper said we might have to 
make our return-journey by land, every sail on the horizon 
was anxiously scanned through our glasses. 

Having passed the broad mouth of the Santee, the steamer 
in three hours and a half ran up an estuary, into which the 
Maccamaw River and the Pedee River pour their united 
waters. 

Our vessel proceeded along-shore to a small jetty, at the 
end of which was a group of armed men, some of them being 
pirt of a military post, to defend the coast and river, estab- 
lished under cover of an earthwork and palisades constructed 
with trunks of trees, and mounting three 32-pounders. Sev- 
eral posts of a similar character lay on the river banks, and 
from some of these we were boarded by men in boats hungry 
for news and newspapers. Most of the men at the pier were 
cavalry troopers, belonging to a volunteer association of the 
gentry for coast defence, and they had been out night and day 
patrolling the shores, and doing the work of common soldiers 
— very precious material for such ^'ork. They wore gray 
tunics, slashed and faced with yellow, buff belts, slouched felt 
hats, ornamented with drooping cocks' plumes, and long jack- 
boots, which well became their fine persons and bold bearing, 
and were evidently due to " Cavalier " associations. They 
were all equals. Our friends on board the boat hailed them 
by their Christian names, gave and heard the news. Among 
the cases landed at the pier were certain of champagne and 
pates, on which Captain Blank was wont to regale his com- 
pany daily at his own expense, or that of his cotton broker. 
Their horses picketed in the shade of trees close to the beach, 
the parties of women riding up and down the sands, or driving 
in light tax-carts, suggested images of a lai-ge picnic, and a 
, state of society quite indifferent to Uncle Abe's cruisers and 
' ' Hessians." After a short delay here, the steamer proceeded 
on her way to Georgetown, an ancient and once important set- 
tlement and port, which was marked in the distance by the 
little forest of masts rising above the level land, and the tops 
of the trees beyond, and by a solitary church-si)ire. 

As the "Nina" approaches the tumble-down wharf of the 
old town, two or three citizens advance from the shade of 
shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few coimtry vehicles and 
light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to re- 
ceive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have 
been playing upon the bales of cotton and bai'rels of rice, 



THE PLANTER'S HOUSE. 129 

which represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up 
commanding positions for the better observation of our pro- 
ceedings. 

There is about Georgetown an air of quaint simplicity and 
old-fashioned quiet, which contrasts refreshingly with the bus- 
tle and tumult of American cities. While waiting for our 
vehicle we enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel Reed, who took 
us into an old-fashioned, angular, wooden mansion, more than 
a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in 
its quaint wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and 
window, to the durability of its cypress timbers and the pre- 
servative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was 
the grand house of the old settlement, and the residence of 
the founder of the female branch of the family of our host, 
who now only makes it his halting-place when passing to and 
fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year 
round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose- 
trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch and filled 
the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good 
idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred 
and fifty years ago. 

At length we were ready for our journey, and, in two light 
covered gigs, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a 
while, led us to a road cut deep in the bosom of the woods, 
where silence was only broken by the cry of a wood[)ecker, 
the scream of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For 
miles we passed through the shades of tliis forest, meeting 
only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom on 
little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their wel- 
come as we passed. Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored 
stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find 
a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers, 
and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, 
in the manner usual in the ferry-boats in Switzerland. 

Another drive through a more open country, and we reach 
a fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts away into a 
shrubbery guarded by a rustic gateway : passing tlirougli this, 
we are brought by a sudden turn to the planter's house, buried 
in trees, which dispute with the green sward and with wild 
flower-beds the space between the hall-door and the waters of 
the Pedee ; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the ex- 
panse of fields marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded 
by a fringe of unceasing forest, just tinged with green by the 
6* 



130 MV DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

first life of the early rice-crops, the chimneys of the steamer 
we had left at Geoi'getowu, gliding as it were through the 
fields, indicate the existence of another navigable river still 
beyond. 

Leaving the veranda which commanded this agreeable 
foreground, vpe enter the mansion, and are reminded by its 
low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to 
be found in parts of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with 
additions, made by the luxury and love of foreign travel, of 
more than one generation of educated Southern planters. 
Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition 
with interesting portraits of early colonial govei'nors and 
their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and 
full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, of 
which Copley has left us too few exemplars ; and one por- 
trait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his 
own pencil can give. An excellent library — filled with col- 
lections of French and English classics, and with those pon- 
derous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the '' Memoires pour 
Servir," books of travel and history which deliglited our fore- 
fathers in the last century, and many works of American and 
general history — affords ample occupation for a rainy day. 

It was five o'clock before we reached our planter's house — 
White House Plantation. My small luggage was cai'ried into 
my room by an old negro in livery, who took great pains to 
assure me of my perfect welcome, and who turned out to be a 
most excellent valet. A low room hung with colored mezzo- 
tints, windows covered with creepers, and an old-fashioned 
bedstead and quaint chairs, lodged me sumptuously ; and after 
such toilet as was considered necessary by our host for a 
bachelor's party, we sat down to an excellent dinner, cooked 
by negroes and served by negroes, and aided by claret mel- 
lowed in Carolinian suns, and by Madeira brought down stairs 
cautiously, as in tlie days of Horace and M^cenas, from the 
cellar between the attic and the thatched roof. 

Our party was increased by a neighboring planter, and 
after dinner the conversation returned to the old channel — 
all the frogs praying for a king — anyhow a prince — to rule 
over them. Our good host is anxious to get away to Europe, 
where his wife and children are, and all he fears is being 
mobbed at New York, where Southerners are exposed to in- 
sult, though they may get off better in that respect than Black 
Republicans would down South. Some of our guests talked 



UNHEALTHY SEASON. 131 

of the duello, and of famous hands with the pistol in these 
parts. The conversation had altogether very much the tone 
which would have probably characterized the talk of a group 
of Tory Irish gentlemen over their wine some sixty years 
ago, and very pleasant it was. Not a man — no, not one — 
will ever join the Union again ! " Thank God ! " they say, 
*' we are freed from that tyranny at last." And yet Mr. Sew- 
ard calls it the most beneficent government in the world, which 
never hurt a human being yet! 

But alas ! all the good things which the house affords, can 
be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has ex- 
panded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the 
scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, 
and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poi- 
soned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and 
he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on 
the shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity 
'tis, 'tis true, the old Madeira garnered 'neath the roof, settles 
down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task 
of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent Hps of its ban- 
ished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at 
least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to 
us beneath the porch, when the moon while softening enhances 
the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of mockmg- 
birds fills the grove. 

Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better 
than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be 
only found among the descendants of the ancestry who, improv- 
ident enough in all else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up 
choice old Bual and Sercial, ere the demon of oidium had dried 
up their generous sources forever. To these must be added 
excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, compounded 
now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and 
fruits, all good of their kind. And is there anything better 
rising up from the bottom of the social bowl ? My black 
fiiends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khit- 
mutgars. They are attired in liveries and wear white cravats 
and Berlin gloves. At night when we retii-e, off they go to 
their outer darkness in the small settlement of negro-hood, 
which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. 
Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of 
security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is 
but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter 



132 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

hereabouts has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen, 
within the short time I have been in this part of the world, 
several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in which 
masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is some- 
thing suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that 
" we are not afi-aid of our slaves." The curfew and the night 
patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the 
police regulations, prove that sti'ict supervision, at all events, 
is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good 
master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so 
with hira. 

These people are fed by their master. They have half a 
pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They 
rear poultry and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. 
They are clothed by their master. He keeps them in sick- 
ness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco 
and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going 
on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get 
its head above water. These fields yield plentifully ; the wa- 
ters of the river are fat, and they are let in whenever the 
planter requires it by means of floodgates and small canals, 
through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the 
river for loading the steamers. 

April 23rf. — A lovely morning grew into a hot day. 
After breakfast, I sat in the shade watching the vagaries of 
some little tortoises, or terrapins, in a vessel of water close at 
hand, or trying to follow the bee-like flight of the humming- 
birds. Ah me ! one wee brownie, with a purple head and red 
facings, managed to dash into a small grape or flower conserv- 
atoi'y close at hand, and, innocent of the ways of the glassy 
wall, he or she — I am much puzzled as to the genders of 
humming-birds, and Mr. Gould, with his wonderful mastery 
of Greek prefixes and Latin terminations, has not aided me 
much — dashed up and down from pane to pane, seeking to 
perforate each with its bill, and carrying death and destruction 
among the big spiders and their cobweb-castles which for the 
time barred the way. 

The humming-bird had as the Yankees say, a bad time of 
it, for its efforts to escape were incessant, and our host said 
tenderly, through his mustaches, " Pooty little thing, don't 
frighten it ! " as if he was quite sure of getting off to Saxony 
by the next steamer. Encumbered by cobwebs and ex- 
hausted, now and then our little friend toppled down among 



HUMMING BIRDS. — THE PLANTATION. 1 33 

the gfeen shrubs, and lay panting like a living nugget of ore. 
Again he, she, or it took wing and resumed that mad career ; 
but at last on some happy turn the bright head saw an open- 
ing through the door, and out wings, body, and legs dashed, 
and sought shelter in a creeper, where the little flutterer lay, 
all but dead, so inanimate, indeed, that I could have taken the 
lovely thing and put it in the hollow of my hand. Wliat 
would pof^ts of Greece and Rome have said of the humming- 
bird ? Wliat would Hafiz, or Waller, or Spenser have sung, 
had they but seen that offspring of the sun and flowers ? 

Later in the day, when the sun was a little less fierce, we 
walked out from the belt of trees round the house on the 
plantation itself. At this time of year tiiere is nothing /S 
recommend to the eye the great breadth of flat fields, sur- 
rounded by small canals, which look like the bottoms of dried- 
up ponds, for the green rice has barely succeeded in forcing its 
way above the level of the rich dai'k earth. The river bounds 
the estate, and when it rises after the rains, its watei's, loaded 
with loam and fertilizing mud, are let in upon the lands 
through the small canals, which are provided with sluices and 
banks and floodgates to control and regulate the supply. 

The negroes had but little to occupy them now. The chil- 
dren of both sexes, scantily clad, were fishing in the canals and 
stagnant waters, pulling out horrible-looking little catfish. 
They Avere so shy that they generally fled at our approach. 
The men and women were apathetic, neither seeking nor shun- 
ning us, and I found that their master knew nothing about 
them. It is only the servants engaged in household duties 
who are at all on familiar terms with their masters. 

The bailiif or steward was not to be seen. One big slouch- 
ing negro, who seemed to be a gangsman or something of the 
kind, followed us in our walk, and answered any questions we 
put to him very readily. It was a picture to see his face 
when one of our party, on returning to the house, gave him a 
larger sum of money than he had proljably ever possessed 
before in a lump. " What will he do with it ? " Buy sweet 
things, — sugar, tobacco, a penknife, and such things. " They 
have few luxuries, and all their wants are pi'ovided foi-." 
Took a cursory glance at the negro quarters, which are not 
very enticing or cleanly. They are surrounded by high pal- 
ings, and the entourage is alive with their poultry. 

Very much I doubt whether Mr. Mitchell is satisfied the 
Southerners are right in their present course, but he and Mr. 



134 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Petigru are lawyers, and do not take a popular view of the 
question. After dinner the conversation again turned on the 
resources and power of the South, and on the determination 
of the people never to go back into the Union. Then cropped 
out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, 
and the desire that if it came to the worst, England would 
receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under 
whom they could secure a monarchical form of government. 
There is no doubt about the earnestness with which these 
things are said. 

As the " Nina " starts down the river on her return voyage 
from Georgetown to-night, and Charleston harbor may be 
■blockaded at any time, thus compelling us to make a long 
detour by land, I resolve to leave by her, in spite of many 
invitations and pressure from neighboring planters. At mid- 
night our carriage came round, and we started in a lovely 
moonlight to Georgetown, crossing the ferry after some delay, 
in consequence of the profound sleep of the boatmen in their 
cabins. One of them said to me, " Mus'n't go too near de 
edge ob de boat, massa." " Why not ? " " Becas if massa 
fall ober, he not come up agin likely, — a bad ribber for 
drowned, massa." He informed me it was full of alligators, 
which are always on tlie look-out for the planters' and ne- 
groes' dogs, and are hated and hunted accordingly. 

The " Nina " was blowing the signal for departure, the 
only sound we heard all through the night, as we drove 
through the deserted streets of Georgetown, and soon after 
three o'clock, a. m., we were on board and in our berths. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Climate of the Southern States — General Beauregard — Risks of the 
post-office — Hatred of New England — By railway to Sea Island 
plantation — Sporting in South Carolina — An hour on board a 
canoe in the dark. 

April 2Ath. — In the morning we found ourselves in chop- 
ping little sea-way for which the " Nina " was particularly 
unsuited, laden as she was with provisions and produce. 
Eyes and glasses anxiously straining seawards for any trace 
of the blockading vessels. Every sail scrutinized, but no 
" stars and stripes " visible. 

Our captain — a good specimen of one of the inland-water 
navigators, shrewd, intelligent, and active, — told me a good 
deal about the country. He laughed at the fears of the whites 
as regards the climate. " Why, here am I," said he, " going 
up the river, and down the river all times of the year, and 
at times of day and night when they reckon the air is most 
deadly, and I've done so for years without any bad effects. 
The planters whose houses I pass all run away in May, and 
go off to Europe, or to the piney wood, or to the springs, or 
they think they'd all die. There's Captain Buck, who lives 
above here, — he comes from the State of Maine. He had 
only a thousand dollars to begin with, but he sets to work and 
gets land on the Maccamaw River at twenty cents an acre. It 
was death to go nigh it, but it was first-rate rice land, and 
Captain Buck is now worth a miUion of dollars. He lives 
on his estate all the year I'ound, and is as healthy a man as 
ever you seen." 

To such historiettes my planting friends turn a deaf ear. 
" I tell you what," said Pringle, "just to show you what kind 
our climate is. I had an excellent overseer once, who would 
insist on staying near the river, and wouldn't go away. He 
fought again.-t it for more than five-and-twenty years, but he 
went down with fever at last." As the overseer was more 
than thirty years of age when he came to the estate, he had 



136 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

not been cut off so very suddenly. I thought of the quack's 
advertisement of the " bad leg of sixty years' standing." The 
captain says the negroes on the river plantations are very 
well off. He can buy enough of pork from the slaves on one 
plantation to last his ship's crew for the whole winter. The 
money goes to them, as the hogs are their own. One of the 
stewards on board had bought himself and his family out of 
bondage with his earnings. The State in general, however, 
does not approve of such practices. 

At three o'clock, p. m., ran into Charleston harbor, ani 
landed soon afterwards. 

I saw General Beauregard in the evening : he was very 
lively and in good spirits, though he admitted he was rather 
surprised by the spirit displayed in the North. " A good 
deal of it is got up, however," he said, " and belongs to that 
washy sort of enthusiasm Avhich is promoted by their lec- 
turing and spouting." Beauregard is very proud of his per- 
sonal strength, which for his slight frame is said to be very 
extraordinary, and he seemed to insist on it that the Southern 
men had more physical strength, owing to their mode of life 
and their education, than their Northern " brethren." In the 
evening held a sort of tabaks consilium in the hotel, where a 
number of officers — Manning, Lucas, Chestnut, Calhoun, &c., 
— discoursed of the affairs of the nation. All my friends, 
except Trescot, I think were elated at the prospect of hostili- 
ties with the North, and overjoyed that a South Carolina reg- 
iment had already set out for the frontiers of Virginia. 

April 2bth. — Sent off my letters by an English gentleman, 
who was taking despatches from Mr. Bunch to Lord Lyons, as 
the post-office is becoming a dangerous institution. We hear 
of letters being tampered with on both sides. Adams's Ex- 
press Company, which acts as a sort of express post under 
certain conditions, is more trustworthy; but it is doubtful how 
long communications will be permitted to exist between the 
two hostile nations, as they may now be considered. 

Dined with Mr. Petigru, who had most kindly postponed 
his dinner party till my return from the plantations, and met 
there General Beauregard, Judge King, and others, among 
whom, distinguished for their esprit and accomplishments, were 
Mrs. King and Mrs. Carson, daughters of my host. The dis- 
like, which seems innate, to New England is universal, and 
varies only in the form of its expression. It is quite true Mr. 
Petigru is a decided Unionist, but he is the sole specimen of 



BETWEEN CHARLESTON AND SAVANNAH. 137 

the genus in Charleston, and he is tolerated on account of his 
rarity. As the witty, pleasant old man trots down the street, 
utterly unconscious of the world around him, he is pointed out 
proudly by the Carolinians as an instance of forbearance on 
their part, and as a proof, at the same time, of popular unan- 
imity of sentiment. 

There are also people who regret the dissolution of the 
Union — such as Mr. Huger, who shed tears in talking of it 
the other night ; but they regard the fact very much as they 
would the demolition of some article which never can be re- 
stored and reunited, which was valued for the uses it rendered 
and its antiquity. 

General Beauregard is apprehensive of an attack by the 
Northern " fanatics " before the South is prepared, and he con- ' 
siders they will carry out coercive measures most rigorously. 
He dreads the cutting of the levees, or high artificial works, 
raised along the whole course of the Mississippi, for many 
hundreds of miles above New Orleans, which the Federals 
may resort to in order to drown the plantations and ruin the 
planters. 

We had a good-humored argument in the evening about the 
ethics of burning the Norfolk navy yard. The Southerners 
consider the appropriation of the arms, moneys, and stores of 
the United States as rightful acts, inasmuch as they represent, 
according to them, their contribution, or a portion of it, to the 
national stock in trade. When a State goes out of the Union 
she should be permitted to carry her forts, armaments, arse- 
nals, &c., along with her, and it was a burning shame for the 
Yankees to destroy the property of Virginia at Norfolk. These 
ideas, and many like them, have the merit of novelty to Eng- 
lish people, who were accustomed to think there were such 
things as the Union and the people of the United States. 

April 26th. — Bade good-by to Charleston at 9-45 a. m., this 
day, and proceeded by railway, in company with Mr. Ward, 
to visit Mr. Trescot's Sea Island Plantation. Crossed the 
river to the terminus in a ferry steamer. No blockading ves- 
sels in sight yet. The water alive witli small silvery fish, like 
mullet, which sprang up and leaj)ed along the surface inces- 
santly. An old gentleman, who was fishing on the pier, com- 
bined the pursuit of sport with instruction very ingeniously by 
means of a fork of bamboo in his rod, just above the reel, into 
which he stuck his inevitable newspaper, and read gi'avely in 
his cane-bottomed chair till he had a bite, when the fork was 



138 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

unhitched and tlie fish was landed. The negroes are very 
much addicted to the contemplative man's recreation, and they 
were fishing in all directions. 

On the move again. Took our places in the Charleston 
and Savannah Railway for Pocotaligo, which is the station 
for Barnwell Island. Our fellow-passengers were all full of 
politics — the pretty women being the fiercest of all — no ! 
the least good-looking were the most bitterly patriotic, as if 
they hoped to talk themselves into husbands by the most un- 
ferainine expressions towards the Yankees. 

The country is a dead flat, perforated by rivers and water 
courses, over which the rail is carried on long and lofty tres- 
tle-work. But for tlie fine trees, the magnolias and live-oak, 
the landscape would he unbearably hideous, for there are none 
of the quaint, cleanly, delightful villages of Holland to relieve 
the monotonous level of rice swamps and wastes of land and 
water and mud. At tlie humble little stations there were in- 
variably groups of horsemen waiting under the trees, and ladies 
with their black nurses and servants who had driven over in 
the odd-looking old-fashioned vehicles, which were drawn up 
in the shade. Those who were going on a long journey, 
aware of the utter barrenness of the land, took with them a 
viaticum and bottles of milk. The nurses and slaves squatted 
down by their side in the train, on perfectly well-understood 
terms. No one objected to their presence — on the contrary, 
the |iassengers treated them with a certain sort of special con- 
sideration, and they were on the happiest terras with their 
charges, some of which wei'e in the absorbent condition of life, 
and dived their little white faces against the tawny bosom of 
thi'.'u- nurses with anything but reluctance. 

The train stopped, at 12'20, at Pocotaligo ; and there we 
found Mr. Trescot and a couple of neighl)oring planters, fa- 
mous as fishers for "drum," of whicii more by and by. I 
had met old Mr. Elliot in Ciuirleston, and his account of this 
sport, and of the })ursuit of an enormous sea monster called 
the devil-fish, which he was one of the first to kill in these 
waters, excited my curiosity very much. Mr. Elliot has writ- 
ten a most agreeable account of the sports of South Carolina, 
and I had hoped he would have been well enough to have 
been my guide, jjliilosopher, and friend in drum-fishing in 
Port Royal; but he sent over his son to say that he was too 
unwell to come, and had therefore despatched most excellent 
representatives in two members of his family. It was ar- 



RAIN-CROWS AND SNAKE-HAWKS. 139 

ranged that they should row down from their place and meet 
us to-morrow morning at Trescot's Island, which lies above 
Beanfort, in Port Royal Soimd and River. 

Got into Trescot's gig, and plunged into a shady lane with 
wood on each side, through which we drove for some distance. 
The country, on each side and beyond, perfectly flat — all 
rice lands — few houses visible — scarcely a human being on 
the road — drove six or seven miles without meeting a soul. 
After a couple of hours or so, I should think, the gig turned 
up by an open gateway on a path or road made through a 
waste of rich black mud, " glorious for rice," and landed us at 
the door of a planter, Mr. Ileyward, who came out and gave 
us a most hearty welcome, in tlie true Southern style. His 
house is charming, surrounded with trees, and covered with 
roses and creepers, through which birds and butterflies are 
flying. Mr. Heyward took it as a matter of course that we 
stO[)ped to diiHier, which we were by no means disiuclined to 
do, as the day was hot, the road was dusty, and his rece[)tion 
frauk and kindly. A fiue specimen of the planter man ; and, 
minus his broad-brimmed straw hat and loose clothing, not a 
bad representative of an English squire at home. 

Whilst we were sitting in the porch, a strange sort of boom- 
ing noise attracted my attention in one of the trees. " It is a 
rain-crow," said Mr. Heyward; "a bird which we believe to 
foretell rain. I'll shoot it for you." And, going into the hall, 
he took down a double-barrelled fowling-piece, walked out, and 
fired into the tree ; whence the rain-crow, poor creature, fell 
fiutteriu": to the jjround and died. It seemed to me a kind of 
cuckoo — the same size, but of darker plumage. I could 
gather no facts to account for the im[)ression that its call is a 
token of rain. 

My attention was also called to a curious kind of snake- 
killing hawk, or falcon, which makes an extraordinary noise 
by putting its wings point upwards, close together, above its 
back, so as to offer no resistance to the air, and then, begin- 
ning to descend from a great height, with fast-increasing rapid- 
ity, makes, by its rushing through the air, a strange loud lunn, 
till it is near the ground, when tlu^ bird stops its downward 
swoop and Hies in a curve over ti)e meadow. This I saw two 
of these birds doing repeatedly to-night. 

After dinner, at wiiieli Mr. Heywai'd expressed some alarm 
lest Secession would dejn-ive the Southern States of " ice," we 
continued our journey towards the river. There is still a re- 



140 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

markable absence of population or life along the road, and 
even the houses are either hidden or lie too far off to be seen. 
The trees are much admired by the people, though they would 
not be thought much of in England. 

At length, towards sundown^ having taken to a track by a 
forest, part of whicli was burning, we came to a broad muddy 
river, with steep clay banks. A canoe was lying in a httle 
harbor formed by a slope in the bank, and four stout negroes, 
who were seated round a burning log, engaged in smoking and 
eating oysters, rose as we approached, and helped the party 
into the " dug-out," or canoe, a narrow, long, and heavy boat, 
with wall sides and a flat floor. A row of one hour, the latter 
part of it in darkness, took us to the verge of Mr. Trescot's 
estate, Barnwell Island ; and^he oarsmen, as they bent to 
their task, beguiled the way by singing in unison a real negro 
melody, which was as unlike the works of the Ethiopian Ser- 
enaders as anything in song could be unlike another. It was 
a barbaric sort of madrigal, in which one singer beginning 
was followed by the others in unison, repeating the refrain in 
chorus, and full of quaint expression and melancholy : — 

" Oh, your soul ! oh, my soul ! I'm going to the churchyard to lay 
this body down ; 
Oh, my soul ! oh, your soul ! we're going to the churchyard 
to lay this nigger down." 

And then some appeal to the difficulty of passing " the Jaw- 
dam," constituted the whole of the song, which continued with 
unabated energy through the whole of the little voyage. To 
me it was a strange scene. The stream, dark as Lethe, flow- 
ing between the silent, houseless, rugged banks, lighted up 
near the landing by the fire in the woods, which I'eddened the 
sky — the wild strain, and the unearthly adjiu-ations to the 
singers' souls, as though they were palpable, put me in mind 
of the fancied voyage across the Styx. 

" Here we are at last." All I could see was a dark shadow 
of trees and the tops of rushes by the river side. "Mind 
where you step, and follow me close." And so, groping along 
through a thick shrubbery for a short space, I came out on a 
garden and enclosure, in the midst of wliicii the white outlines 
of a house were visible. Lights in the drawing-room — a 
lady to receive and welcome us — a snug library — tea, and 
to bed : but not without more talk about tlie Southern Con- 
federacy, in which Mrs. Trescot explained how easily she 
could feed an army, from her experience in feeding her ne- 
groes. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Domestic negroes — Negro oarsmen — Off to the fishing grounds — 
The devil-fish — Bad sport — The drum-fish — Negro quarters — 
Want of drainage — Thievish propensities of the blacks — A 
Southern estimate of Southerners. 

April 21th. — Mrs. Trescot, it seems, spent part of her 
night in attendance on a young gentleman of color, who was 
introduced into the world in a state of servitude by his poor 
chattel of a mother. Such kindly acts as these are more 
common than we may suppose ; and it would be unfair to put 
a strict or unfair construction on the motives of slave owners 
in paying such attention to their property. Indeed, as Mrs. 
Trescot says, " When people talk of my having so many 
slaves, I always tell them it is the slaves who own me. Morn- 
ing, noon, and night, I'm obliged to look after them, to doctor 
them, and attend to them in every way." Property has its 
duties, you see, madam, as well as its rights. 

The planter's house is quite new, and was built by himself; 
the principal material being wood, and most of the work being 
done by his own negroes. Such work as window-sashes and 
panellings, however, was executed in Charleston. A pretty 
garden runs at the back, and from the windows there are 
wide stretches of cotton-fields visible, and glimpses of the 
river to be seen. 

After breakfast our little party repaired to the river side, 
and sat under the shade of some noble trees waiting for tlie 
boat which was to bear us to the fishing grounds. The wind 
blew up stream, running with the tide, and we strained our 
^es in vain for the boat. The river is here neai'ly a mile 
across, — a noble estuary rather, — with low banks lined with 
forests, into which the axe has made deep forays and clearings 
for cotton-fields. 

It would have astonished a stray English traveller, if, pen- 
etrating the shade, he heard in such an out-of-the-way place 
familiar names and things spoken of by the three lazy persons 



142 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

who were stretched out — cigar in mouth — on the ant-haunt- 
ed trunks which lay prostrate by the se^ishore. Mr. Trescot 
spent some time in London as attache to the United States 
Legation, was a chib man, and had a hvrge circle of acquaint- 
ance among the young men about town, of whom he remem- 
bered many anecdotes and peculiarities, and little adventures. 
Since that time he was Under-Secretary of State in Mr. 
Buchanan's administration, and went out with Secession. He 
is the author of a very agreeable book on a dry subject, " The 
History of American Diplomacy," which is curious enough as 
an unconscious exposition of the anti-British jealousies, and 
even antipathies, which have animated American sta.tesmen 
since they were created. In fact, much of American diplo- 
macy means. hostility to England, and the skilful employment 
of the anti-British sentiment at their disposal in tlieir own 
country and elsewhere- Now he was talking pleasantly of 
people he had met — many of them mutual friends. 

" Here is the boat at last ! " I had been sweeping the 
broad river with my glass occasionally, and at length detected 
a speck on its Jjroad surface moving down towax'ds us, with a 
white dot marking the foam at its bows. Spite of wind and 
tideway, it came rapidly, and soon approached us, pulled by 
six powerful negroes, attired in red-flaunel jackets and white 
straw hats with broad ribbons. The craft itself — a kind ot 
monster canoe, some forty-five feet long, narrow, wall-sided, 
with high bow and raised stern — lay deep in the water, for 
there were extra negroes for the fishing, servants, baskets of 
provisions, water buckets, stone jars of less innocent drinking, 
and abaft there was a knot of great strong planters, — Elliots 
all — cousins, uncles, and brothers. A friendly hail as they 
swept up along-side, — an exchange of salutations. 

" Well, Trescot, have you got plenty of Crabs ? " 

A groan burst forth at his insouciant reply. He had been 
charged to find bait, and he had told the negroes to do so, and 
the negroes had not done so. The fishermen looked grievous- 
ly at each other, and fiercely at Trescot, who assumed an air 
of recklessness, and threw doubts on the existence of fish in 
the river, and resorted to similar miserable subterfuges ; in* 
deed, it was subsequently discovered that he was an utter 
infidel in regard to the delights of piscicapture. 

" Now, all aboard ! Over, you fellows, and take these 
gentlemen in ! " The negroes were over in a moment, waist 
deep, and, each taking one on his back, deposited us dry in 



DF.YII-FISH. 143 

the boat. I onlj mention this to record the fact, that I was 
much impressed by a practical demonstration from my bearer 
respecting the strong odor of the skin of a heated African. I 
have been wedged up in a cohimn of infantry on a hot day, 
and have marched to leeward of Ghoorkhas in India, but the 
overpowering pungent smell of the negro exceeds everything 
of the kind I have been unfortunate enough to experience. 

The vessel was soon moving again, against a ripple, caused 
by the wind, which blew dead against us ; and, notwithstand- 
ing the praises bestowed on the boat, it was easy to perceive 
liat the labor of pulling such a dead-log-like thing through 
the water told severely on the rowers, who had already come 
some twelve miles, I think. Nevertheless, they were told to 
sing, and they began accordingly one of those wild Baptist 
chants about the Jordan in which they delight, — not destitute 
of music, but utterly unlike what is called an Ethiopian mel- 
ody. 

The banks of the river on both sides are low ; on the left 
covered with wood, through whicii, here and there, at inter- 
vals, one could see a planter's or overseer's cottage. The 
course of this great combination of salt and fresh water some- 
times changes, so that houses are swept away and plantations 
submerged ; but the land is much valued nevertheless, on 
account of the fineness of the cotton grown among the islands. 
" Cotton at twelve cents a pound, and we don't fear the 
world." 

As the boat was going to the fishing ground, which lay 
towards the mouth of the river at Hilton Head, our friends 
talked politics and s}»orting combined, — the first of the usual 
character, the second quite new. 

I heard much of the mighty devil-fish which frequents 
these waters. One of our party, Mr. Elliot, sen., a tall, 
knotty, gnarled sort of man, with a mellow eye and a hearty 
voice, was a famous hand at the sport, and had had some 
hair-breadth escapes in pursuit of it. The fish is described 
as of enormous size and strength, a monster ray, which pos- 
sesses formidable antenniE-like horns, and a pair of huge fins, 
or flappers, one of which rises above the water as the creature 
moves below the surface. The hunters, as they may be call- 
ed, go out in parties, — three or four boats, or more, with 
good store of sharp harpoons and tow-lines, and lances. When 
they perceive the creature, one boat takes the lead, and 
moves down towards it, the others following, each with a 



144 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

harpooner standing in the bow. The devil-fish sometimes is 
wary, and dives, when it sees a boat, taking such a long spell 
below that it is never seen again. At other times, however, 
it backs, and lets the boat come so near as to allow of the 
harpooner striking it, or it dives for a short way and comes 
up near the boats again. The moment the harpoon is fixed, 
the line is paid out by the rush of the creature, which is 
made with tremendous force, and all the boats at once hurry 
up, so that one after another they are made fast to that in 
which the lucky sportsman i« seated. At length, when the 
line is run out, checked from time to time as much as can be 
done with safety, the crew take their oars and follow the 
course of the ray, which swims so fast, however, that it keeps 
the line taut, and drags the whole flotilla seawards. It de- 
pends on its size and strength to determine how soon it rises 
to the surface ; by degrees the line is warped in and hove 
short till the boats are brought near, and when the ray comes 
up it is attacked with a shower of lances and harpoons, and 
dragged off" into shoal water to die. 

On one occasion, our Nimrod told us, he was standing in 
the bows of the boat, harpoon in hand, wlien a devil-fish came 
up close to him ; he threw the harpoon, struck it, but at the 
same time the boat ran against the creature with a shock 
which threw him right forward on its back, and in an instant 
it caught him in its horrid arms and plunged down with him 
to the depths. Imagine the horror of the moment ! Imagine 
the joy of the terrified drowning, dying man, when, for some 
inscrutable reason, the devil-fish relaxed its grip, and enabled 
him to strike for the surface, where he was dragged into 
the boat more dead than alive by his terror-smitten compan- 
ions, — the only man who ever got out of the embraces of 
the thing alive. " Tom is so tough that even a devil-fish 
could make nothing out of him." 

At last we came to our fishing ground. There was a sub- 
stitute found for the favorite crab, and it was fondly hoped our 
toils might be rewarded with success. And these were toils, 
for the water is deep and the lines heavy. But to alleviate 
them, some hampers were produced from the stern, and won- 
derful pies from Mrs. Trescot's hands, and from those of fair 
ladies up the river whom we shall never see, were spread out, 
and bottles which represented distant cellars in friendly nooks 
far away. "No drum here! Up anchor, and pull away a 
few miles lower down." Trescot shook his head, and again 



DRUM-FISH. 145 

asserted his disbelief in fishing, or rather in catching, and in- 
deed made a sort of pretence at arguing that it was wiser to 
remain quiet and talk philosophiciU politics ; but, as judge of 
appeal, I gave it against him, and the negroes bent to their 
oars, and we went thumping through the spray, till, rounding 
a point of land, we saw pitched on the sandy shore ahead of 
us, on the right bank, a tent, and close by two boats. " There 
is a party at it ! " A fire was burning on the beach, and as we 
came near, Tom and Jack and Harry were successfully identi- 
fied. " There's no take on, or they would not be on shore. 
This is very unfortunate." 

All the regret of my friends was on my account, so to ease 
their minds I assured them I did not mind the disappointment 
much. "Hallo Dick! Caught any drum?" "A few this 
morning ; bad sport now, and will be till tide turns again." 
I was introduced to all the party from a distance, and present- 
ly I saw one of them raising from a boat something in look 
and shape and color like a sack of flour, which he gave to a 
negro, who proceeded to carry it towards us in a little skiff. 
" Thank you, Charley. I just want to let Mr. Russell see a 
drum-fish." And a very odd fish it was, — a thick lumpish 
form, about four and a half feet long, with enormous head and 
scales, and teeth like the grinders of a ruminant animal, acting 
on a great pad of bone in the roof of the moutli, — a very un- 
lovely thing, swollen with roe, which is the great delicacy. 

" No chance till the tide turned," — but that would be too 
late for our return, and so unwillingly we were compelled to 
steer towards home, hearing now and then the singular noise 
like the tap on a large unbraced drum, from which the fish 
takes its name. At first, when I heard it, I was inclined to 
think it was made by some one in the boat, so near and close 
did it sound ; but soon it came from all sides of us, and evi- 
dently from the depths of the water beneath us, — not a sharp 
rat-tat-tap, but a full muffled blow with a heavy thud on the 
sheepskin. Mr. Trescot told me that on a still evening by the 
river side the effect sometimes is most curious, — the rolling 
and pattering is audible at a great distance. Our friends were 
in excellent humor with everything and everybody, except the 
Yankees, though they had caught no fish, and kept the negroes 
at singing and rowing till at nightfall we landed at the island, 
and so to bed after supper and a little conversation, in which 
Mrs. Trescot again explained how easily she could maintain 
a battahon on the island by her simple commissariat, already 
7 



146 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

adapted to the niggers, and that it would thei'cfore be very 
easy for the South to feed an army, if the people were 
fi'iendly. 

April 28th. — The ehnrch is a long way off, only available 
by a boat and then a drive in a carnage. In the morning a 
child brings in my water and boots — an intelligent, curly- 
headed creature, dressed in a sort of sack, without any par- 
ticular waist, barefooted. 1 imagined it was a boy till it told 
me it was a girl. I asked if she was going to church, which 
seemed to puzzle her exceedingly ; but she told mc linally she 
would hear prayers from "uncle" in one of the cottages. 
This use of the words " uncle " and "aunt " for old people 
is very general. Is it because they have no fathers and 
mothers? In the course of the day, the child, who was four- 
teen or fifteen years of age, asked me " whether I would not 
buy her. She could wash and sew very well, and she tliouglit 
missus wouldn't want much for her." The object she IkkI in 
view leaked out at last. It was a desire to see the glories 
of Beautbrt, of which she had heard from the tishcrmen ; and 
she seemed quite wonderstruck when she whs informed I did 
not live there, and had never seen it. She had never been 
outside the plantation in her life. 

After breakfast we loitered about the grounds, strolling 
through the cotton-fields, which had as yet put forth no bloom 
or tiower, and coming down others to the thick fringes of 
wood and sedge bordering the marshy banks of the island. 
The silence was profound, broken only by the husky mid-day 
crowing of the cocks in the negro quarters. 

In the afternoon 1 took a short drive " to see a tree," which 
was not very remarkable, and looked in at the negro quarters 
and tiie cotton-mill. The oM negroes were mostly indoors, 
and came shambling out to the doors of their wooden cottages, 
making clumsy bows at our approach, but not expressing any 
interest or pleasure at the sight of their master an<l the strang- 
ers. They were shabbily clad; in tattered clothes, bad straw 
hats and felt bonnets, and broken shoes. The latter are expen- 
sive articles, and negroes cannot dig without them. Trescot 
sighed as he spoke of the increase of price since the troubles 
broke out. 

The huts stand in a row, like a street, each detached, with 
a jKniltry- house of rude planks behind it. The mutilations 
which the poultry undergo for the sake of distinction ai'e 
striking. Some are deprived of a claw, others have the wat- 



A SEA-ISLAND PLANTATION. 147 

ties cut, and tails and wings suffer in all ways. No attempt 
at any drainage or any convenience existed near them, and 
the same remark applies to very good houses of white peo|)le 
in the south. Heaps of oyster shells, broken crockery, okl 
shoes, rags, and feathers were found near each hut. The huts 
were all alike windowless, and the apertures, intended to be 
glazed some fine day, were generally filled up with a deal 
board. The roofs were shingle, and the whitewash whicli 
had once given the settlement an air of cleanliness, was now 
only to be traced by patches which had escaped the action of 
the rain. I observed that many of the doors were fastened 
by a padlock and chain outside. " Why is that ? " " The 
owners have gone out, and honesty is not a virtue they have 
towards each other. They would find their things stolen if 
they did not lock their doors." Mrs. Trescot, however, in- 
sisted on it that nothing could exceed the probity of the slaves 
in the house, except in regard to sweet things, sugar, and the 
like ; but money and jewels were quite safe. It is obvious 
that some reason must exist for this regard to the distinctions 
twixt meum and tuuni in the case of masters and mistresses, 
when it does not guide their conduct towards each other, and 
I think it might easily be found in the fact that the negroes 
could scarcely take money without detection. Jewels and 
jewelry would be of little value to them ; they could not 
wear them, could not part with them. The system has made 
the white population a police against the black race, and the 
punishment is not only sure but grievous. Such things as 
they can steal from each other are not to be so readily 
traced. 

One particularly dirty looking little hut was described to 
me as " the church." It was about fifteen feet square, be- 
grimed with dirt and smoke, and windowless. A few benches 
were placed across it, and " the preacher," a slave from 
another plantation, was expected next week. These preach- 
ings are not encouraged in many plantations. They " do the 
niggers no good" — "they talk about things that are going on 
elsewhere, and get their minds unsettled," and so on. 

On our return to the house, I found that Mr. Edmund 
Rhett, one of the active and influential political family of that 
name, had called — a very intelligent and agreeable gentle- 
man, but one of the most ultra and violent speakers against 
the Yankees I have y-et heard. He declared there were few 
persons in South Carolina who would not sooner ask Great 




"i4fe MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Britain to take back the State than submit to the triumph 
of the Yankees. " We are an agricultural people, pursuing 
our own system, and working out our own destiny, breeding 
up women and men with some other purpose than to make 
them vulgar, fanatical, cheating Yankees — hypocritical, if as 
women they pretend to real virtue ; and lying, if as men they 
pretend to be honest. We have gentlemen and gentlewomen 
in your sense of it. ^e have a system which enables us to 
reap the fruits of the' earth by a race which we save from 
barbarism in restoring them to their real place in the world as 
laborers, whilst we ai*e enabled to cultivate the arts, the 
graces, and accomplishments of life, to develop science, to 
apply ourselves to the duties of government, and to under- 
stand the affairs of the country." 

This is a very common line of remark here. The South- 
erners also take pride to themselves, and not unjustly, for 
their wisdom in keeping in Congress those men who have 
proved themselves useful and capable. " We do not," they 
say, " cast able men aside at the caprices of a mob, or in obe- 
dience to some low party intrigue, and hence we are sure of 
the best men, and are served by gentlemen conversant with 
public affairs, far superior in every way to the ignorant clowns 
who are sent to Congress by the North. Look at the fellows 
who are sent out by Lincoln to insult foreign courts by their 
presence." I said that I understood Mr. Adams and Mr. 
Dayton were very respectable gentlemen, but I did not re- 
ceive any sympathy ; in fact, a neutral who attempts to mod- 
erate the violence of either side, is very like an ice between 
two hot plates. JNlr. Rhett is also persuaded that the Lord 
Chancellor sits on a cotton bale. "You must recognize us, 
sir, before the end of October." In the evening a distant 
thunder-storm attracted me to the garden, and I remained out 
watching the broad flashes and sheets of fire worthy of the 
tropics till it was bedtime. 



CHAPTER XX. 

By railway to Savannah — Description of the city — Rumors of the 
last few days — State of aftairs at AVashington — Preparations for 
war — Cemetery of Bonaventure — Koad made of oyster-shells — 
Appropriate features of the Cemetery — The Tatnall family — . 
Dinner-party at Mr. Green's — FeoUng in Georgia against the 
North. 

April 29<A. — This morning up at six, A.M., bade farewell 
to our hostess and Barnwell Island, and proceeded with Tres- 
cot back to the Pocotaligo station, which we reached at 12-20. 
On our way Mr. Heywai'd and his son rode out of a field, 
looking very like a couple of English country squires in all but 
hats and saddles. The young gentleman was good enough 
to bring over a snake-hawk he had shot for me. At the 
station, to which the Heywards accompanied us, were the 
Elliotts and others, who had come over with invitations and 
adieux ; and I beguiled the time to Savannah reading the 
very interesting book by Mr. Elliott, senior, on the Wild 
Sports of Carolina, which was taken up by some one when 
I left the carriage for a moment and not returned to me. Tlie 
country through which we passed was flat and flooded as 
usual, and the rail passed over dark deep rivers on lofty 
trestle-work, by pine wood and dogwood-tree, by the green 
plantation clearing, with mud bank, dike, and tiny canal mile 
by mile, the train stopping for the usual freight of ladies, and 
negro nurses, and young planters, all very much of the same 
class, till at three o'clock, p. m., the cars rattled up along-side 
a large shed, and we were told we had arrived at Savannah. 

Here was waiting for me INIr. Charles Green, who had al- 
ready claimed me and my friend as his guests, and I found in 
his carriage the young American designer, who had preceded 
me from Charleston, and had informed Mr. Green of my 
coming. 

The drive through such portion of Savannah as lay be- 
tween the terminus and Mr. Green's house, soon satisfied my 
eyes that it had two peculiarities. In the first place, it had 



150 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the deepest sand in the streets I have ever seen ; and next, 
the streets were composed of the most odd, quaint, green-win- 
dowed, many-colored little houses I ever beheld, with an odd 
population of lean, sallow, ill-dressed unwholesome-looking 
whites, lounging about the exchanges and corners, and a busy, 
well-clad, gayly-attired race of negroes, working their way 
through piles of children, under the shade of the trees which 
bordered all the streets. The fringe of green, and the height 
attained by the live-oak, Pride of India, and magnolia, give 
a delicious freshness and novelty to the streets of Savannah, 
which is increased by the great number of squares and open- 
ings covei'ed with something like sward, fenced round by 
white rail, and embellished with noble trees to be seen at 
every few hundred yards. It is difficult to believe you are 
in the midst of a city, and I was repeatedly reminded of the 
environs of a large Indian cantonment — the same kind of 
churches and detached houses, with their plantations and gar- 
dens not unlike. The wealthier classes, however, have houses 
of the New York Fifth Avenue character : one of the best of 
these, a handsome mansion of rich red-sandstone, belonged to 
my host, who coming out from England many years ago, 
raised himself by industry and intelligence to the position 
of one of the first mei'chants in Savannah. Italian statuary 
graced the hall ; finely carved tables and furniture, stained 
glass, and pictures from Europe set forth the sitting-rooms ; 
and the luxury of bath-rooms and a supply of cold fresh water, 
rendered it an exception to the general run of Southern edi- 
fices. Mr. Green drove me through the town, which im- 
pi'essed me more than ever with its peculiar character. We 
visited Brigadier-General Lawton, who is charged with the 
defences of the place against the expected Yankees, and found 
him just setting out to inspect a band of volunteers, whose 
drums we heard in the distance, and whose bayonets were 
gleaming through the clouds of Savannah dust, close to the 
statue erected to the memory of one Pulaski, a Pole, who 
was mortally wounded in the unsuccessful defence of the city 
against the British in the War of Independence. He turned 
back and led us into his house. The hall was filled with 
little round rolls of flannel. "These," said he, "are car- 
tridges for cannon of various calibres, made by the ladies 
of Mrs. Lawton's ' cartridge class.' " Tliere were more 
cartridges in the back parlor, so that the house was not 
quite a safe place to smoke a cigar in. The General has 



NEWS FROM THE NORTH. 151 

been in the United States' army, and has now come forward 
to head the people of this State in their resistance to the 
Yankees. 

We took a sti'oU in the park, and I learned the news of the 
last few days. The people of the South, I find, are delighted 
at a snubbing which Mr. Seward has given to Governor 
Hicks of Maryland, for recommending the arbitration of 
Lord Lyons, and he is stated to have informed Governor 
Hicks that " our troubles could not be referred to foi'eign ar- 
bitration, least of all to that of the representative of a Euro- 
pean monarchy." The most terrible accounts are given of 
the state of things in Washington. Mr. Lincoln consoles 
himself for his miseries by drinking. Mr. Seward follows 
suit. The White House and capital are full of drunken bol- 
der ruffians, headed by cftie Jim Lane, of Kansas. But, on 
the other hand, the Yankees, under one Butler, a Massachu- 
setts lawyer, have arrived at Annapolis, in Maryland, secured 
the " Constitution " man-of-war, and are raising masses of 
men for the invasion of the South all over the States. The 
most important thing, as it strikes me, is the proclamation of 
the Governor of Georgia, forbidding citizens to pay any 
money on account of debts due to Northerners, till the end of the 
war. General Robert E. Lee has been named Commander- 
in-Chief of the Forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 
and troops are flocking to that State from Alabama and other 
States. Governor Ellis has called out 30,000 volunteers in 
North Carolina, and Governor Rector of Arkansas has seized 
the United States' military stores at Napoleon. There is a 
rumor that Fort Pickens has been taken also, but it is very 
pi'obably untrue. In Texas and Arkansas the United States 
regulars have not made an attempt to defend any of the foi-ts. 

In the midst of all this warlike work, volunteers drilling, 
bands playing, it was pleasant to walk in the shady park, with 
its cool fountains, and to see the children playing about — 
many of them, alas ! " playing at soldiers " — in charge of 
their nurses. Returning, sat in the veranda and smoked a 
cigar ; but the mosquitoes were very keen and numerous. 
My host did not mind them, but my cuticle will never be 
sting-proof. 

April 30th, — At 1-30 p. m. a small party started from Mr. 
Green's to visit the cemetery of Bonaventure, to which every 
visitor to Savannaii must pay his pilgi'image ; dijjiciles aditus 
primos habet — a deep sandy road which strains the horses 



152 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and the carriages ; but at last " the shell road is reached — a 
highway several miles long, consisting of oyster shells — the 
pride of Savannah, which cats as many oysters as it can to 
add to the length of this wonderful road. Tliere is no stone 
in the whole of the vast alluvial ranges of South Carolina and 
Maritime Georgia, and the only substance available for mak- 
ing a road is the oyster-shell. There is a toll-gate at each end 
to aid the oyster-shells. Remember they are three times the 
size of any European crustacean of the sort. 
> A pleasant drive through the shady hedgerows and border- 
i ig trees lead to a dilapidated porter's lodge and gateway, 
within which rose in a towering mass of green one of the fin- 
est pieces of forest architecture possible ; nothing to be sure 
like Burnham Beeches, or some of the forest glades of Wind- 
sor, but possessed, nevertheless, of a character quite its own. 
What we gazed upon was, in fact, the ruin of grand avenues 
of live-oak, so well-disposed that their peculiar mode of 
growth afforded an unusual development of the " Gothic idea," 
Avorked out and elaborated by a superabundant foil from the 
overlacing arms and intertwined branches of the tillandsia, or 
Spanish moss, a weeping, drooping, plumaceous parasite, which 
does to the tree what its animal type, the yellow fever — 
vomitoprieto — does to man — clings to it everlastingly, drying 
up sap, poisoning blood, killing the principle of life till it dies. 
The only differ, as they say in Ireland, is, that the tillandsia 
all the time looks very pretty, and that the process lasts very 
long. Some there are who praise this tillandsia, hanging like 
the tresses of a witch's hair over an invisible face, but to me it 
is a paltry parasite, destroying the grace and beauty of that 
it preys upon, and letting fall its dull tendrils over the fresh 
lovely green, as clouds drop over the face of some beautiful 
landsciipe. Despite all this, Bonaventure is a scene of re- 
markable interest ; it seems to have been intended for a place 
of tombs. The Turks would have filled it with turbaned 
white pillars, and with warm ghosts at night. The French 
would have decorated it with interlaced hands of stone, with 
tears of red and black on white ground, with wreaths of im- 
mortelles. I am not sure that we would have done much 
more than have got up a cemetery company, interested Shil- 
liber, hired a beadle, and erected an iron paling. The Sa- 
vannah people not following any of these fashions, all of which 
are adopted in Northern cities, have left everything to nature 
and the gatekeeper, and to the owner of one of the hotels, who 



THE TATNALLS. 153 

has got up a grave-yard in the ground. And there, scattered 
up and down under the grand old trees, which drop tears of 
Spanish moss, and weave wreaths of Spanish moss, and 
sliake [)himes of Spanish moss over them, are a few monu- 
mental stones to certain citizens of Savannah. There is a 
melancholy air about the place independently of these emblems 
of our mortality, whi(;h might recommend it specially for pic- 
nics. There never was before a cemetery where nature 
seemed to aid the effect intended by man so thoroughly. 
Every one knows a weeping willow will cry over a wedding 
party if they sit under it, as well as over a grave. But here 
the Spanish moss looks like weepers wreathed by some fan- 
tastic hand out of the cra{)e of dreamland. Lucian's Ghost- 
lander, the son of Skeleton of the Tribe of the Juiceless, could 
tell us something of such weird trappings. They are known 
indeed as the best bunting for yellow fever to fight under. 
Wherever their flickering horsehair tresses wave in the breeze, 
taper end downwards, Squire Bhick Jack is bearing lance and 
sword. One great green oak says to tlie other, '' This fellow 
is killing me. Take Iiis deadly robes off my limbs ! " " Alas ! 
see how he is ruining me ! 1 have no life to help you." It 
is, indeed, a strange and very ghastly place. Here are so 
many querci virentes, old enough to be strong, and big, and 
great, sapful, lusty, wide-armed, green-honored — all dying 
out slowly beneath tilhmdsia, as if they were so many mon- 
archies perisliing of decay — or so many youthful republics 
dying of buncombe brag, richness of blood, and other diseases 
fatal to overgrown bodies politic. 

The void left in the midst of all these designed walks and 
stately avenues, by the absence of any suitable centre, increases 
the seclusion and solitude. A house ought to be there some- 
where you feel — in fact there was once the mansion of the Tat- 
nalls, a good old English family, whose ancestors came from the 
okl country, ere the rights of man were talked of, and lived 
among the Oglethorpes, and such men of the pigtail school, 
who would have been greatly astonished at finding themselves 
in company with Benjamin Franklin or his kind. I don't 
know anything of old Tatnall. Indeed who does ? But he 
had a tine idea of planting trees, whicli he never got in Amer- 
ica, where lie would have received scant praise for anything 
but his power to plant cotton or sugar-cane just now. In his 
knee breeches, and top boots, I can fancy the old gentleman 
reproducing some home scene, and boasting to himself, " I will 
7* 



154 MY DIAKY NOKTll AND SOUTH. 

miiko it ns lino a;? Lonl Nihilo's park." Could lio see it now ? 
— A (Uraying army of the dead. 'Vlw mansion was bnrned 
down during a Christmas merrymaking, and was never built 
again, and the young trees liave grown up despite the Spanish 
moss, and now they stnnd, as it were in ealhedral aisles, amund 
the ruins of the departed house, shading the ga)und, and en- 
shrining its memories in an antiquity which seems of the 
remotest, although it is not as ancient as that of the youngest 
oak in the Scpiire's park at home. 

1 have before ottentin\es in my short voyages here, won- 
dered greatly at the reverence bestowed on a tree. In fact, 
it is because a tree of any tlecent growth is sure to be oliler 
than anything else around it ; and although young America 
revels in her future, she is becoming oKl enough to think 
about her past. 

In the evening ]\[r. Creen gave a dinner to some very 
agreeable people, Mv. AVard, the Chinese Minister — (who 
tried, by the by, to make it appear that his wooden box was 
the Pekin State carriage for distinguished foreigners) — Mr. 
Locke, the clever and intelligent editor of the principal jour- 
nal in Savannah, Brigadier Lawton, one of the .ludges, a 
Hritisher, owner of the once renowned America which, under 
the name of Camilla, was now lying in the river (not perha[>s 
without rel'erence to a little speculation in running the block- 
ade, hourly expected). Mr. Ward and Conunodore Tatnall, so 
well known to us in England tor his gallant conduct in tin* 
Peiho affair, when he otlered and gave our vessels aid, though 
a neutral, and uttered the exclamation in doing so, — in his 
desi)atch at all events, — "that blood was thicker than water." 
Of our party was also iNIr. Hodgson, well known to most of 
our INlediterranean travellers some years back, when he was 
United States Consul in the East. He amuses bis leisure 
still by inditing and reading monograjdis on the languages of 
divers barbarous tribes in Numidia and Mauritania. 

The Georgians are not quite so vehement as the South 
Carolinians in their hate of tlu' Northerners ; but they are 
scarcely less determined to fight President Lincoln and all his 
men. And that is the test of this rebellion's strength. I did 
not hear any profession of a desire to become subject to Eng- 
land, or to borrow a prince of us ; but 1 have nt)wlu>re seen 
stronger determination to resist any reunion with the New 
England States. " They can't conijuer us, sir ? " " If they 
try it, we'll whip them." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Tho rivor at Snvann.ili — Commodoro 'rntnall — Fort Pulaski — WiuU 
of a' tlivt to tho SoutluTiiors — Stroiijr tooling of tlio women — 
Slavory I'Oiisidoivil in its ivsult — Cotton and ttoortiia — Ort'for 
Montgoniory — Tho Hishop of (loorjjia — Tho Uiblo ami Slavery 
— Macon — Dislike of United States gold. 

Mai/ Day. — Not unworthy of tlu' be^t effort of Emjlish 
fine woathor before the ohanjje in the calendar robbed tlie 
poets of twelve days, but still a little warm for choice. The 
Aoung American artist INIoses, who was to have called our 
party to meet the officers who were goinj; to Fort Pulaski, 
for some reason known to himself remained on board the 
Camilla, and when at last we got down to tlie river side I 
found Commodore Tutnall and Brigsidier I^awton in lull uni- 
form waiting for me. 

The river is about the width of the Thames below Graves- 
end, very muddy, with a strong current, and rather fetid. 
Tliat effect miglit have been produced tVom the rice-swamps 
at tlie other side of it, where the land is quite low, and stretches 
away as far as tlie sea in one level green, smooth as a billiard- 
cloth. The bank at the city side is higher, so that the lu)uses 
stand on a little eminence over tlie stream, affording con- 
venient wharfage and slips for fnerchant vessels. 

Of these there were few indeed visible — nearly all had 
cleared out for fear of the blockade ; some coasting vessels 
were lying idle at the quay side, and in the middle of the 
stream near a floating dock the Camilla was moored, with her 
club ensign tlying. These are the times for bold ventures, 
and if Uncle Sam is not very quick with his blockades, there 
will be plenty of privateers and the like under C. S. A. colors, 
looking out for his fat merchantmen all over the world. 

I have been trying to persuade my friends here tiiey will 
find very few Englishmen willing to take letters of marque 
and reprisal. 

The steamer which was waiting to receive us had the Con- 



156 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

federate flag flying, and Commodore Tatnall, pointing to a 
young oflicer in a naval uniform, told me he had just " come 
over fi'om the other side," and that he had pressed hard to be 
allowed to hoist a Commodore or flag-officer's ensign in honor 
of the visit and of the occasion. I was much interested in the 
fine white-headed, blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked old man — who 
suddenly found himself blown into the air by a great political 
explosion, and in doubt and wonderment was floating to shoi'e, 
under a strange flag in unknown waters. He was full of 
anecdote too, as to strange flags in distant waters and well- 
known names. The gentry of Savannah had a sort of Celtic 
feeling towards him in regard of his old name, and seemed de- 
termined to support him. 

He has served the Stars and Stripes for three fourths of a 
long life — his friends are in the North, his wife's kindred are 
there, and so are all his best associations — but his State has 
gone out. How could he fight against the country that gave 
him birth ! The United States is no country, in the sense 
we understand the words. It is a corporation or a body cor- 
porate for certain purposes, and a man miglit as well call him- 
self a native of the common council of the city of London, or 
a native of the Swiss Diet, in the estimation of our Americans, 
as say he is a citizen of the United States ; though it answers 
very well to say so when he is abroad, or for purposes of a 
legal character. 

Of Fort Pulaski itself I wrote on my return a long account 
to the " Times." 

When I was venturing to point out to General Lawton the 
weakness of Fort Pulaski, placed as it is in low land, accessi- 
ble to boats, and quite open enough for approaches from the city 
side, he said, " Oh, that is true enough. All our seacoast 
works are liable to that remark, but the Commodore will take 
care of the Yankees at sea, and we shall manage them on 
land." These people all make a mistake in referring to the 
events of the old war. " We beat off the British fleet at 
Charleston by the militia — ergo, we'll sink the Yankees now." 
They do not understand the nature of the new shell and 
heavy vertical fire, or the effect of projectiles from great dis- 
tances falling into works. The Commodore afterwards, 
smiling, remarked, " I have no fleet. Long before the South- 
ern Confederacy has a fleet that can cope with the Stars and 
Stripes, my bones will be white in the grave." 

We got back by eight o'cloak, p. m., after a pleasant day. 



CIVILIZING EFFECT OF SLAVERY. 157 

What I saw did not satisfy rae that Pulaski was strong, or 
Savannah very safe. At Bonaventure, yesterday, I saw a 
poor fort, called " Thunderbolt," on an inlet from which the 
city was quite accessible. It could be easily menaced from 
that point, while attempts at landing were made elsewhere, as 
soon as Pulaski is reduced. At dinner met a very strong 
and very well-informed Southerner — there are some who are 
neither — or either — whose name was spelled Gourdin, and 
pronounced Go-dine — just as Huger is called Hugee — and 
Tagliaferro, Telfer, in these parts. 

May 2d. — Breakfasted with Mr. Hodgson, where I met 
Mr. Locke, Mr. Ward, Mr. Green, and Mrs. Hodgson and 
her sister. There were in attendance some good-looking 
little negro boys and men dressed in liveries, which smacked 
of our host's Orientalism ; and they must have heard our dis- 
cussion, or rather allusion, to the question which would decide 
whether we thought they are human beings or black two- 
legged cattle, with some interest, unless indeed the boast of 
their masters, that slavery elevates the character and civilizes 
the mind of a negro, is another of the false pretences on 
which the institution is rested by its advocates. The native 
African, poor wretch, avoids being carried into slavery totis 
viribus, and it would argue ill for the effect on his mind of 
becoming a slave, jf he prefers a piece of gaudy calico even 
to his loin-cloth and feather head-dress. This question of 
civilizing the African in slavery, is answered in the assertion 
of the slave owners themselves, that if the negroes were left 
to their own devices by emancipation, they would become the 
worst sort of barbarians — a veritable Quasheedom, the like 
of which was never thought of by Mr. Thomas Carlyle. I 
doubt if the aboriginal is not as civilized, in the true sense of 
the word, as any negro, after three degrees of descent in 
servitude, whom I have seen on any of the plantations — 
even though the latter have leather shoes and fustian or cloth 
raiment and felt hat, and sings about the Jordan. He is ex- 
empted from any bloody raid indeed, but he is liable to be 
carried from his village and borne from one captivity to an- 
other, and his family are exposed to the same exile in America 
as in Africa. The extreme anger with which any unfavorable 
comment is met publicly, shows the sensitiveness of the slave 
owners. Privately, they affect philosophy ; and the blue 
books, and reports of Education Commissions and Mining 
Committees, furnish them with an inexhaustible source of ar- 



158 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

gument, if you once admit lliat the summum bonum lies in a 
certain rotundity of person, and a regular supply of coarse 
food. A long conversation on the old topics — old to me, but 
of only a few weeks' birth. People are swimming with the 
tide. Here are many men, who would willingly stand aside 
if they could, and see the battle between the Yankees, whom 
they hate, and the Secessionists. But there are no women in 
this j)arty. Wo betide the Northern Pyrrhus, whose head is 
within reach of a Southern tile and a Southern woman's 
arm ! 

I revisited some of the big houses afterwards, and found 
the merchants not cheerful, but fierce and resolute. There is 
a considerable jjopulation of Irish and Germans in Savannah, 
who to a man are in favor of the Confederacy, and will light 
to support it. Indeed, it is expected they will do so, and there 
is a pressure brought to bear on thera by their employers 
which they cannot well resist. The negroes will be forced 
into the place the whites hitherto occupied as laborers — only 
a few useful mechanics will be kept, and the white population 
will be obliged by a moral force drafting to go to the wars. 
The kingdom of cotton is most essentially of this world, and it 
will be tbught for vigorously. On the quays of Savamiah, 
and in the warehouses, there is not a man wiio doubts that he 
ought to strike his hardest for it, or apprehends failure. And 
then, wiiat a career is before them ! All the world asking 
for cotton, and England dependent on it. Wliat a change since 
Whitney first set his cotton-gin to work in this slate close by 
us ! Georgia, as a vast country only partially reclaimed, yet 
looks to a magnificent future. In her past history the Florida 
wars, and the treatment of the unfortunate Cherokee Indians, 
who were expelled from their Itmds as late as 1838, show the 
peo[)le who descended from old Oglethorpe's band were fierce 
and tyrannical, and apt at aggression, nor will slavery im- 
prove them. I do not speak of the cultivated and hospitable 
citizens of the large towns, but of the bulk of the slaveless 
whites. 

J/ay 3d. — I bade good-by to Mr. Green, who with several 
of his friends came down to see me off, at the terminus or 
"depot" of the Central Railway, on my way to Montgomery 
— and looked my last on Savannah, its squares and leafy 
streets, its churches, and institutes, with a feeling of regret 
that 1 could not see more of tliem, and that I was forced to be 
content with the outer aspect of the public buildings. I bad 



EPISCOPAL SANCTION OF SLAVERY. 159 

been serenaded and invited out in all directions, asked to visit 
plantations and big trees, to make excursions to famous or 
beautiful spots, and especially warned not to leave the State 
without visiting the mountain district in the northern and west- 
ern portion ; but the march of events called me to Mont- 
gomery. 

From Savannah to Macon, 191 miles, the road passes 
through level country only partially cleared. That is, there 
are patches of forest still intruding on the green fields, where 
the jagged black teeth of the destroyed trees rise from above 
the maize and cotton. There were but ihw negroes visible at 
work, nor did the land appear rich, but I was told the rail was 
laid along the most ban-en part of the country. The Indians 
had roamed in these woods little more than twenty years ago 

— now the wooden huts of the planters' slaves, and the larger 
edifice with its veranda and timber colonnade stood in the 
place of their wigwam. 

Among the passengers to whom I was introduced was the 
Bishop of Georgia, the Rev. Mr. Elliott, a man of exceeding 
fine presence, of great stature, and handsome face, with a 
manner easy and graceful, but we got on the unfortunate 
subject of slavery, and I rather revolted at hearing a Christian 
prelate advocating the institution on scriptural grounds. 

This affectation of Biblical sanction and ordinance as the 
basis of slavery was not new to me, though it is not much 
known afr the other side of the Atlantic. I had read in a work 
on slavery, that it was permitted by both the Scriptures and the 
Constitution of the United States, and that it must, therefore, 
be doubly right. A nation that could approve of such inter- 
pretations of the Scriptures and at the same time read the 
" New York Herald." seemed ripe for destruction as a corpo- 
rate existence. The malum prohibitum was the only evil its 
crass senses could detect, and the malum per se was its good, 
if it only came covered with cotton or gold. The miserable 
sophists who expose themselves to the contempt of the world 
by their paltry thesicles on the divine origin and uses of 
slavery, are infinitely more contemptible than the wretched 
bigots who published themes long ago on the propriety of 
burning witches, or on the necessity for the offices of the In- 
quisition. 

Whenever the Southern Confederacy shall achieve its inde- 
pendence — no matter what its resources, its allies, or its aims 

— it will have to stand face to face with civilized Europe on 



160 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

this question of slavery, and the strength which it derived from 
the a^gis of tlie Constitution — " the league with the devil and 
covenant with Hell " — will be withered and gone. 

I am well aware of the danger of drawing summary con- 
clusions off-hand from the windows of a railway, but there is 
also a right of sight which exists under all circumstances, and 
so one can detern^ine if a man's face be dirty as well from a 
glance as if he inspected it for half an hour. For instance, 
no one can doubt the evidence of his senses, when he sees 
from the windows of the carriages that the children are bare- 
footed, shoeless, stockingless — that the people who congregate 
at the wooden huts and grog-shops of the stations are rude, un- 
kempt, but great fighting material, too — that the villages are 
miserabla places, compared with the trim, snug settlements 
one saw in New Jersey from the cai'riage windows. Slaves 
in the fields looked happy enough — but their masters certainly 
wei'e rough looking and uncivilized — and the land was but 
badly cleared. But then we were traversing the least fex'tile 
portions of the State — a recent acquirement — gained only 
one generation since. 

Tiie train halted ar a snug little wood-embowered restaurant, 
surrounded by trellis and lattice-work, and in the midst of a 
pretty garden, which presented a marked contrast to the " sur- 
roundings " we had seen. The dinner, served by slaves, was 
good of its kind, and the charge not high. On tendering the 
landlord a piece of gold for payment, he looked at it with dis- 
gust, and asked, " Have you no Charleston money ? No Con- 
federate notes ? " " Well, no ! Why do you object to gold ? " 
" Well, do you see, I'd rather have our own paper ! I don't 
care to take any of the United States gold. I don't want their 
stars and their eagles ; I hate the sight of them." The man 
was quite sincere — my companion gave him notes of some 
South Carolina bank. 

It was dark when the train reached IMacon, one of the prin- 
cipal cities of the State. We drove to the best hotel, but the 
regular time for dinner hour was over, and that for supper not 
yet come. The landlord directed us to a subterranean restau- 
rant, in which were a series of crypts closed in by dirty cur- 
tains, where we made a very extraordinary repast, served by 
a half-clad little negress, who watched us at the meal with 
great interest tlirough the curtains — the service was of the 
coarsest description ; thick French earthenware, the spoons 
of pewter, the knives and forks steel or iron, with scarce a 



MACON HOTEL. 161 

pretext of being cleaned. On the doors were the usual warn- 
ings against pickpockets, and the customary internal police 
regulations and ukases. Pickpockets and gamblers abound 
in American cities, and thrive greatly at the large hotels and 
the lines of railways. 






CHAPTER XXII. 

Slave-pens ; Negroes on sale or hire — Popular feeling as to Secession 

— Beauregard and speech-making — Arrival at Montgomery — ■ 
Bad hotel accommodation — Knights of the Golden Circle — Ke- 
flections on Slavery — Slave auction — The Legislative Assemhly 

— A "live chattel" knocked down — Rumors from the North 
(true and false) and prospects of war. 

May 4th. — In the morning I took a drive about the city, 
which is loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty 
undulating country covered with wood and fruit-trees. Many 
good houses ot" dazzling white, with bright green blinds, veran- 
das, and doors, stand in their own grounds or gardens. In 
the course of the drive I saw two or three signboards and 
placards announcing that " Smith & Co. advanced money on 
slaves, and had constant supplies of Virginian negroes on sale 
or hire." These establishments were surrounded by high 
walls enclosing the slave-pens or large rooms, in which the 
slaves are kept for inspection. The train for Montgomery 
started at 9*45 a. m., but I had no time to stop and visit them. 

It is evidimt we are approaching the Confederate capital, 
for the candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a 
printed testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country, 
from Macon, in Georgia, to Montgomery, in Alabama, offers no 
features to interest the traveller which are not common to the 
districts already described. It is, indeed, more undulating, 
and somewhat more picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on 
the whole, there is little to recommend it, except the natural 
fertility of the soil. The people are rawer, ruder, bigger — 
there is the same amount of tobacco chewing and its conse- 
quences — and as much swearing or use of ex|)letives. The 
men are tall, lean, uncouth, but tliey are not peasants. Thei'e 
are, so far as I have seen, no rustics, no peasantry in America ; 
men dress after the same type, differing only in finer or coarser 
material ; every man would wear, if he could, a black satin 
waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of his 



POPULAR FEELING. 163 

shirt, as he cei'tainly has a watch and a gilt or gokl chain of 
some sort or other. The Irish laborer, or the German hus- 
bandman is ihe nearest approach to our Giles Jolter or the 
Jacques Bonhomme to be ibund in the States. The mean 
white affects the style of the large proprietor of slaves or cap- 
ital as closely as he can; he reads his papers — and, by the* 
by, they are becoming smaller and more whitey-brown as we 
proceed — and takes his drink with the same air — takes up 
as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same fashion. 

The people are all hearty Secessionists here — the Bars and 
Stars are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops, 
and there are lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Soutliern 
Confederacy. Troops are flocking towards Virginia from the 
Southern States in reply to the march of Volunteers from 
Northern States to Washington ; but it is felt that the steps 
taken by the Federal Government to secure Baltimore have 
obviated any chance of successfully opposing the " Lincolnites " 
going through that city. There is a strong disposition on the 
part of the Southerners to believe they have many friends in 
the North, and they endeavor to attach a factious character 
to the actions of the Govennuent by calling the Volunteers 
and the war party in the North " Lincolnites," " Lincoln's 
Mercenaries," " Black Republicans," " Abolitionists," and the 
like. The report of an armistice, now denied by Mr. Seward 
officially, was for some time current, but it is plain that tlie South 
must make good its words, and justify its acts by the sword. 
General Scott would, it was fondly believed, retire from the 
United States army, and either remain neutral or take com- 
mand under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain he 
will not follow any of these courses, he is assailed in the foulest 
manner by the press and in private conversation. Heaven 
help the idol of a democracy ! 

At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by 
Mr. Manning, and others of his staff', got into the car, and 
tried to elude observation, but the conductors take great pleas- 
ure in unearthing distinguished passengers for the public, and 
the General was called on for a speech by the crowd of idlers. 
The General hates speech-making, he told me, and he had 
besides been bored to death at every station by similar de- 
mands. But a man must be popular or he is nothing. So, 
as next best thing, Governor Manning made a speech in the 
General's name, in which he dwelt on Southern Riglits, Sumter, 
victory, and abolitiondom, and was carried off" from the cheers 



164 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

of his auditors by the train in the midst of an unfinished 
sentence. There were a number of blacks listening to the 
Governor, who were appreciative. 

Towards evening, having thrown out some slight outworks, 
against accidental sallies of my fellow-passengers' saliva, I 
4 went to sleep, and woke up at eleven P. m., to hear we were in 
Montgomery. A very rickety omnibus took the party to the 
hotel, which was crowded to excess. The General and his 
friends had one room to themselves. Three gentlemen and 
myself were crammed into a filthy room which already con- 
tained two ytrai)g(!rs, and as there were only three beds in tlie 
apartment it was a[)parent that we were intended to " double 
up considerably ; " but after strenuous efforts, a little bribery 
and cajoling, we succeeded in procuring mattresses to put on 
the floor, whicli was regarded by our neighbors as a proof of 
miserable aristocratic fastidiousness. Had it not been for the 
flies, the fleas would have been intolerable, but one nuisance 
neutralized the other. Then, as to food — nothing could be 
had in the hotel — but one of the waiters led us to a restau- 
rant, where we selected from a choice bill of fare, which con- 
tained, I think, as many odd dishes as ever I saw, some un- 
known fishes, oyster-plants, 'possums, raccoons, frogs, and other 
delicacies, and, eschewing toads and the like, really made a 
good meal off dirty plates on a vile table-cloth, our appetites 
being sharpened by the best of condiments. 

Colonel Pickett has turned up here, having made his escape 
from Washington just in time to escape arrest — travelling 
in disguise on foot through out-of-the-way places till he got 
among friends. 

I was glad when bedtime approached, that I was not among 
the mattress men. One of the gentlemen in tlie bed next 
the door was a tremendous projector in the tobacco juice line : 
his final rumination ere he sank to repose was a masterpiece 
of art — a perfect liquid pyrotechny, Roman candles and 
falling stars. A horrid thought occurred as I gazed and won- 
dered. In case he should in a supreme moment turn his 
attention my way ! — I was only seven or eight yards off, 
and that might be nothing to him ! — I hauled down my mos- 
quito curtain at once, and watched him till, completely satia- 
ted, he slept. 

May hth. — Very warm, and no cold water, unless one went 
to the river. The hotel baths were not promising. This 
hotel is worse than the Mills House or Willard's. The feeding 



INNER VIEW OF SLAVERY. 



165 



and the flies are intolerable. One of our party comes in to 
say that he could scarce get down to the hall on account of 
the crowd, and that all the people who passed him had very 
hard, sluirp bones. He remarks thereupon to the clerk at the 
bar, who tells him that the particular projections he alludes to 
are implements of defence or offence, as the case may be, and 
adds, " I suppose you and your friends are the only people 
in the house who haven't a bowie-knife, or a six-shooter, or 
Derringer about them." The house is full of Confederate 
congressmen, politicians, colonels, and place-men with or 
without places, and a vast number of speculators, contractors, 
and the like, attracted by the embryo government. Among 
the visitors are many filibusters, such as Hennmgsen, Pick- 
ett, Tochman, Wheat.* I hear a good deal about the associa- 
tion called the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Pi'otestant 
association for securing the Gulf provinces and States, includ- 
ing — which has been largely developed by recent events — 
them in the Southern Confederacy, and creating them into an 
independent government. 

Montgomery has little claims to be called a capital. The 
streets are very hot, unpleasant, and uninteresting. I have 
rarely seen a more dull, lifeless place ; it looks like a small 
Russian town in the interior. The names of the shopkeepers 
indicate German and French origin. I looked in at one or 
two of the slave magazines, which are not unlike similar estab- 
lishments in Cairo and Smyrna. A certain degree of free- 
dom is enjoyed by some of the men, who lounge about the 
doors, and are careless of escape or liberty, knowing too well 
the difficulties of either. 

It is not in its external aspects generally that slavery is so 
painful. . The observer must go with Sterne, and gaze in on 
the captives' dungeons through the bars. The condition of a 
pig in a sty is not, in an animal sense, anything but good. 
Well fed, over fed, covered from the winds and storms of 
heaven, with clothing, food, medicine, provided, children taken 
care of, aged relatives and old age itself succored and guarded 

— is not this ? Get thee behind us, slave philosopher ! 

The hour comes when the butcher steals to the sty, and the 
knife leaps from the sheath. 

Now there is this one thing in being an ai/a^' dvSpwi', that 
be the race of men bad as it may, a kind of grandiose charac- 
ter is given to their leader. The stag which sweeps his rivals 
* Since killed in action. 



166 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

from his course is the largest of the herd ; but a man who 
drives tiie largest drove of sheep is no better than he who 
drives the smallest. The flock he compels, must consist of 
human beings to develop the property of which I speak, and 
so the very superiority of the slave master in the ways and 
habits of command proves that the negro is a man. But, at 
the same time the law which regulates all these relations be- 
tween man and his fellows, asserts itself here. The dominant 
race becomes dependent on some other body of men, less mar- 
tial, arrogant, and wealthy, for its elegances, luxuries, and 
necessaries. The poor villeins round the Norman castle forge 
the armor, make the furniture, and exercise the mechanical 
arts which the baron and his followers are too ignorant and 
too proud to pursue ; if there is no population to serve this 
purpose, some energetic race comes in their place, and the 
Yankee does the part of the little hungry Greek to the 
Roman patrician. 

The South has at present little or no manufactures, takes 
everything from the Yankee outside or the mean white within 
her gates, and despises both. Both are reconciled by interest. 
The one gets a good price for his manufacture and the fruit 
of his ingenuity from a careless, spendthrift proprietor ; the 
other hopes to be as good as his master some day, and sees 
the beginning of his fortune in the possession of a negro. It 
is fortunate for our great British Catherine-wheel, which is 
continually throwing off light and heat to the remotest parts 
of the world — I hope not burning down to a dull red cinder 
in the centre at last — that it had not to send its emigrants to 
the Southern States, as assuredly the emigration would soon 
have been checked. The United States has been represented 
to the British and Irish emigrants by the Free States — the 
Northern States and the great West — and the British and 
German emigrant who finds himself in the South, has drifted 
there through the Northern States, and either is a migratory 
laborer, or hopes to return with a little money to the North 
and West, if he does not see his way to the possession of land 
and negroes. 

After dinner at the hotel table, which was crowded with 
officers, and where I met Mr, Howell Cobb and several sena- 
tors of the new Congress, I spent the evening with Colonel 
Deas, Quartermaster-General, and a number of his staff, in 
their quarters. As I was walking over to the house, one of 
the detached villa-like residences so common in Southern cities, 



COTTON, LAND, AND NEGROES. 167 

1 perceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and 
women, in front of a plain brick building which I was inform 
ed was their Baptist meeting-house, into which white people 
rarely or never intrude. These were domestic servants, or 
persons (>mployed in stores, and their general appearance indi- 
cated much comfort and even luxury. I doubted if they all 
were slaves. One of my companions went up to a young 
woman in a straw-hat, with bright red-and-green ribbon trim- 
mings and artificial flowers, a givudy Paisley shawl, and a rain- 
bow-like gown, blown out over her yellow boots by a prodig- 
ious crinoline, and asked her " Whom do you belong to ? " She 
replied, '• I b'long to Massa Smith, sar." Well, we have men 
who " belong " to hoi'ses in England. I am not sure if 
Americans, North and South, do not consider their superiority 
to all Englishmen so thoroughly established, that they can 
speak of them as if they were talking of infei'ior animals. 
To-night, for example, a gallant young South Carolinian, 
one Ransome Calhoun,* was good enough to say that " Great 
Britain was in moi-tal fear of France, and was abjectly subdued 
by her great rival." Hence came controversy, short and acii- 
monious. 

May Qih. — I forgot to say that yesterday before dinner I 
drove out with some gentlemen and the ladies of the family of 
Mr. George N. Sanders, once United States consul at Liver- 
pool, now a doubtful man here, seeking some office from the 
Government, and accused by a portion of the pi'ess of being 
a Confederate spy — Porcus de grege epicwi — but a learned 
pig withal, and weatherwise, and mindful of the signs of the 
times, catching straws and whisking them up,wards to detect 
the currents. Well, in this great moment I am bound to say 
there was much talk of ice. The North owns the frozen cli- 
mates ; but it was hoped that Great Britain, to whom belongs 
the North Pole, might force the blockade and send aid. 

Tlie environs of Montgomery are agreeable — well-wooded, 
undulating, villas abounding, public gardens, and a large negro 
and mulatto suburb. It is not usual, as far as I can judge, to 
see women riding on horseback in the South, but on the x'oad 
here we encountered several. 

After breakfast I walked down with Senator Wigfall to the 

capitol of Montgomery — one of the true Athenian Yankee- 

ized structures of this novo-classic land, erected on a site 

worthy of a better face and edifice. By an open cistern, on 

* Since killed. 



i'68 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

our way, I came on a gentleman engaged in disposing of some 
living ebony carvings to a small circle, who had more curiosity 
than cash, for thc^y did not at all respond to the energetic 
appeals of tlie auctioneer. 

Tne sight was a bad preparation for an introduction to the 
legislative assembly of a Confederacy which rests on the In- 
stitulion as the corner-stone of the social and political arch 
whicii maintains it. But there they were, the legislators or 
conspirators, in a large room provided with benches and seats, 
and Hstening to sucli a sermon as a Balfour of Burley miglit have 
preached to ins Covenanters — resolute and massive heads, 
and large frames — such men as must have a faith to inspire 
them. And that is so. Assaulted by reason, by logic, argu- 
ment, philanthropy, progress directed against his peculiar in- 
stitutions, the Soutlierner at last is driven to a fanaticism — a 
sacred faith which is above all reason or logical attack in the 
propriety, righteousness, and divinity of slavery. 

The cha|)lain, a venerable old man, loudly invoked curses 
on tiie heads of the enemy, and blessings on the arms and 
councils of the New State. When he was done, Mr. Howell 
Cobb, a fat, double-cliinned, mellow-eyed man, rapped with 
his hammer on the desk before the chair on wiiicli he sat 
as speaker of tlie assembly, and the house proceeded to bus- 
iness. I could fancy that, in all but garments, they were 
like the men who first conceived the great rebellion which led 
to the independence of this wonderful country — so earnest, 
so grave, so sober, and so vindictive — at least, so embittered 
against the power which they consider tyrannical and insulting. 

The word " liberty" was used repeatedly in the short linm 
allotted to the public transaction of business and the reading 
of documents ; the Congress was anxious to get to its work, 
and Mr. Howell Cobb again thumped his desk and announci'd 
that the house was going into "secret session," which inti- 
mated that all persons who were not members shouhl leave. I 
was introduceil to what is called the floor of the iiouse, and had 
a delegate's cliair, and of course I moved away with the others, 
and with the disap[)ointed ladies and men from the galleries; 
but one of the m<;mbers, Mr. Rhett, 1 believe, said jokingly : 
" 1 think you ought to retain your seat. If tlie ' Times ' will 
support the Soulli, we'll accept you as a delegate." 1 replied 
that I was afraid I could not act as a delegate to a Congress 
of Slave States. And, indeed, I had been much alFecUsd at 
the slave auction held just outside the hotel, on the steps of 



NEGRO AUCTION. 169 

the public fountain, which I had witnessed on my way to the 
capitol. The auctioneer, who was an ill-favored, dissipated- 
looking rascal, had his " artich; " beside him, on, not in, a deal 
packing-case — a stout young negro badly dressed and ill-shod, 
who stood witli all his goods fastened in a small bundle in his 
hand, looking out at the small and listless gathering of men, 
who, whittling and chewing, had moved out from the shady side 
of the street as they saw the man put up. The chattel charac- 
ter of slavery in the States renders it most repulsive. What a 
pity the nigger is not polypoid — so that he could be cut up 
in junks, and each junk should reproduce itself. 

A man in a c:irt, some volunteers in coarse uniforms, a few 
Irisii laborers in a long van, and four or five men in the usual 
black coat, satin waistcoat, and black hat, constituted the au- 
dience, whom tlie auctioneer addressed volubly : " A prime field 
hand ! Just look at him — good-natered, weli-temjjcred ; no 
marks, nary sign of bad about him ! P]n-i-ne hunthered — 
only nine hun-ther-ed and fifty dol'rs for 'em ! Why, it's quite 

rad-aklous ! Nine hundred and fifty dol'rs ! I can't raly 

That's good. Thank you, sir. Twenty-five bid — nine hun- 
therd and seventy-five dol'rs for this most useful hand. The 
price rose to one thousand dollars, at whicli the useful 
hand was knocked down to one of the black hats near me. 
The auctioneer and the negro and his buyer all walked off to- 
gether to settle the transaction, and the crowd moved away. 

" That nigger went cliea[)," said one of them to a compan- 
ion, as he walked towards the shade. "Yes, Sirr ! Niggers 
is cheap now — that's a fact." I must admit that I felt my- 
self indulging in a sort of reflection whether it would not be 
nice to own a man as absolutely as one might possess a horse 
— to hold him subject to my will and ])leasure, as if he were 
a brute beast without the power of kicking or biting — to 
make him work for me — to hold his fate in my hands : but 
the thougiit was for a moment. It was followed by disgust. 

I have seen slave markets in the East, where the traditions 
of the race, tlie condition of family and social relations divest 
slavery of the most odious characteristics which pertain to it 
in the States ; but the use of the English tongue in such a 
transaction, and the idea of its taking place among a civilized 
Christian people, produced in me a feeling of inexpressible 
loathing and indignation. Yesterday I was much struck by 
the intelligence, activity, and desire to please of a good-look- 
ing colored waiter, who seemed so light-hearted and light- 
8 



170 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

colorod I conld not imngiJio lie was a slave. So one of our 
party, who was an Ann'rican, asked him : " What are you, 
boy — a tree nigger ? " Of course he knew tliat in Ahibania 
it was most unfikely he could reply in the allirmative. The 
young man's smile died away from his lips, a flush of blood 
embrowned the face for a moment, and he answered in a sad, 
low tone : " No, sir ! I b'long to jMassa Jackson," and left the 
room at once. As I stood at an upper window of the capitol, 
and h)ok('d on the wide ex])anse of richly-wooded, well-culti- 
vated land which swcei)s roiuul the hill-side away to the hori- 
zon, I could not iu'lp thinking of the misery and cruelty which 
must have been borne in tilling the land and raising the 
houses and streets of the douiinant race before whom one na- 
tionality of colored people has pei'ished within the memory of 
man. Tiie mis<'ry and cruelty of the system are established 
by the advertisements for runaway negroes, and by the de- 
scription of the stigmata on their })ersons — whippings and 
brandings, scars and cuts — though these, indeed, are less 
frequent here than in tiie border Slates. 

On my return, the Hon. W. M. Browne, Assistant-Secre- 
tary of State, came to visit me — a cadet of an Irish family, 
who came to America some years ago, and having lost his 
money in land speculations, turned his pen to good account 
as a journalist, and gained Air. Buchanan's patronage and 
sup[)ort as a newspaper editor in Washington. There he be- 
came intimate with the Southern gentlemen, willi whom he 
naturally associated in preference to the Northern meuibers ; 
and when they went out, he walked over along with them. 
He told me the Government had already received numerous 
— I think he said 400 — letters from sliip-owners applying 
for lett(;rs of marque and reprisal. Many of these apphca- 
tions were from merchants in Boston, and other maritime 
cities in the New England States, lie further stated that 
the President was determined to take the whole control of the 
army, and the api)oinlinents to command in all raidis of olU- 
cers into his own hands. 

There is now no possible chance of preserving the peace or 
of averting the horrors of war from these great and prospei"* 
ous communities. The Southern people, right or wrong, are 
bent on independence and on separation, and they will fight 
to the last tor tiieir object. 

The press is fanning the flame on both sides : it would be 
difficult to say whether it or the telegraphs circulate lies most 



NOW AND EIGHTY-SIX YKARS SINCK. 171 

larjijely ; but lliat iis \]n\ pripcrs print \\u'^ U'U'<xv;unn they must 
liave t]\o. palm. Tlic SoutlicriKa-s arc told tlinn^ is a n'V^n of ter- 
ror in New York — (hat i\\('. 7lii New York RL'i!;im('iit li:is boon 
ca|)tiri'('<l by ilw. liallimon; pcoph; — that Abo Liiicolii is 
always driiiik — that (Jciici-al L(^(' has s('izc<l Arliii^((oii Ihu^hts, 
and is bombardint^ Washiiii^loii. The N(!vv York people are 
r(!ga!ed with similar stories fVom lluj South. The coiiieidtince 
betwe(!ii the date of the skirmish at Lexington and of the at- 
tac^k on tlu; ()th Massachusetts RegimtMit at lialtiinorc is not 
so remarkable as th(! fa(;t, that the first man who was killed at 
the latter plac<% 8G years ago, was a direct des(;eiidant oi' the 
first of the colonists who was killed by the I'oyal soldiery, 
lialtimon" may do the same for the South which Lexington 
did for all the Colonies. Ilead-shaving, forcibic! deportations, 
tarring and featlicring am recommiMided and adopted as spe- 
cifics to pi'oducc conversion from erroneous opinions. The 
Fnvsidcnt of th(! United Slates has called into service of the 
F(!deral (Jovernmcmt 42,000 v(»limte(!rs, and incrcascHl the n^g- 
ular army by 22,000 men, and tlxi navy by 18,000 men. If 
the South secM'de, they ought c<(rtaiuly to take; over with them 
some Yanke(! hotel ki^epers. This " Exchange! " is in a fright- 
ful state — nothing but noise, dirt, drinking, wrangling. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Proclamation of war — Jefferson Davis — Interview with the Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy — Passport and safe-conduct — Messrs. 
Wigfall, Walker, and Eenjaniin — Privateering and letters of 
marque — A reception at JeUurson Davis's — Dinner at Mr. Ben- 
jamin's. 

May 0th. — To-day the papers contain a proclamation by 
the President of tlie Con(e(h;rate States of America, dechir- 
ing a state of war between the Confederacy and the United 
States, and notifying the issue of letters of marque and repri- 
sal. I went out with Mr. Wigfall in the forenoon to jiay my 
respects to Mr. Jefhtrson Davis at the State Department. 
Mr. Seward told me that but for Jefferson Davis the Seces- 
sion [)lot eouhl never have been carried out. No other man 
of the party had the brain, or the courage and dexterity, to 
bring it to a successful issue. All the persons in the Southern 
States spoke of him witli admiration, though their forms of 
speech and thought generally forbid them to be respectful to 
any one. 

There b(ifore me was " Jeff Davis's State Department" — a 
large brick building, at the corner of a street, with a Confed- 
erate Hag iloating above it. The door stood open, and "gave" 
on a large hall whitewashed, with doors plaiidy painted be- 
longing to small rooms, in which was transacted most impor- 
tant business, judging by the names written on sheets of paper 
and ap[)lied outside, denoting bureaux of the highest functions. 
A few clerks were passing in and out, and one or two gentlemen 
were on the stairs, but there was no appearance of any bustle 
in the building. 

We walked straight np-stairs to the first floor, which was 
surrounded by doors opening from a quadrangular platform. 
On one of these was written simply, " The President." Mr. 
Wigfall went in, and after a moment returned and said, " The 
President will be glad to see you ; walk in, sir." When I 
entered, the President was engaged with four gentlemen, who 



MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS. 173 

were making some offer of aid to him. He was thanking 
them " in the name of the Government." Shaking hands 
with each, he saw them to the door, howed them and Mr. 
Wigfali out, and turning to me, said, " Mr. Russell, I am glad 
to welcome you here, though I fear your appearance is a 
symptom that our affairs are not quite prosperous," or words 
to that effect. He then requested me to sit down close to his 
own chair at his office-table, and proceeded to speak on gen- 
eral matters, adverting to the Crimean War and the Indian 
Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebastopol, the Redan, 
and the Siege of Lucknow. 

I had an o[)portunity of observing tiie President very 
closely : he did not impress me as favorably as 1 had ex- 
pected, though he is certainly a very different looking man 
from Mr. Lincoln. He is like a gentleman — has a slight, 
light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself 
erect and straight. He was dressed in a rustic suit of slate- 
colored stuff, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck ; 
his manner is plain, and rather reserved and drastic ; his 
head is well formed, with a fine full forehead, square and 
high, covered with innumerable fine lines and wrinkles, fea- 
tures regular, though the cheek-bones are too higli, and the 
jaws too hollow to be handsome ; the lips are thin, flexible, and 
curved, the chin square, well defined ; the nose very regular, 
with wide nostrils ; and the eyes deep-set, large and full — 
one seems nearly blind, and is pai'tly covered with a film, 
owing to excruciating attacks of neuralgia and tic. Wonder- 
ful to relate, he does not chew, and is neat and clean-looking, 
with hair trimmed, and boots brushed. The expression of his 
face is anxious, he has a very haggard, care-worn, and pain- 
drawn look, though no trace of anything but the utmost con- 
fidence and the greatest decision could be detected in his con- 
versation. He asked me some general questions respecting 
the route I had taken in the States. 

T mentioned that I had seen great military preparations 
thi'ough the South, and was astonished at the alacrity with 
which the people sprang to arms. " Yes, sir," he remarked, 
and his tone of voice and manner of speech are rather re- 
markable for what are considered Yankee peculiarities, " In 
Eu-rope" (Mr. Seward also indulges in ■ that pronunciation) 
" they laugh at us because of our fondness for military titles 
and displays. All your travellers in this country have com- 
mented on the number of generals and colonels and majors 



174 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

all ovvv llir State's. Rut the fact is, \vc are a military peo- 
j)le, and tlii'sc si;j;iis of the fact w<n'e ignored. We are not 
less military because we have had no grout standing armies. 
But perhaps we are the only people in the world where gen- 
tlemen go to a military academy who do not intend to follow 
the [)ro('ession of arms." 

In the course of our conversation, I asked him to have the 
goodness to dineet that a sort of passport or protection should 
he given to nu;, as I might possibly fall in with some guerrilla 
lea<Ier on my way norlhwaids, in whose o\v<. I might not be 
entitled to safe conduct. IMr. Davis said, " 1 shall give such 
instructions to the Secnitary of War as shall be necessary. 
15ut, sir, you an; among civilized, intelligent people who under- 
stand your position, and ap|)rcciate your character. We do 
not seek the sympathy of England by unworthy means, for 
we respect ourselves, and we are glad to invite the scrutiny 
of men into our acts ; as for our motives, we meet the eye of 
Heaven." I thought I could judge from his words tliat he 
had the highest idea of the French as soldiers, but that his 
feelings and associations were more identilied with England, 
although he was quite aware of the difficulty of conquering 
the repugnance which exists to slavery. 

Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities at Washing- 
ton, but he asked me if I thought it was supposed in England 
there would bt^ war between the two States ? I answered, 
tlial I was under the impression the public thought there 
would be no actual hostilities. " And yet you see we are 
driven to take up arms for the defence of our rights and lib- 
erties." 

As I saw an immense mass of papers on his table, I rose 
and made my bow, ami Mr. Davis, seeing me to the door, 
gave me his hand and said, " As long as you may stay among 
us you shall receive every facility it is in our power to afford 
to you, and I shall always be glad to see you." Colonel Wig- 
fall was outside, and took me to the room of the Secretary of 
War, Mr. Walker, whom we found closeted with General 
Beauregard and two other ollicers in a room full of maps and 
plans. He is the kind of man generally represented in our 
types of a "Yankee" — tall, lean, straight-haired, angular, 
with liery, impulsive eyes and maimer — a ruminator of to- 
bacco and a i)rofuse sj)itter — a lawyer, I believe, certainly 
not a soldier ; ardent, devot<Hi to the cause, and contident to 
the last degree of its speedy success. 



Mil. BKNJAMIN. 175 

Tlio news (li!it two nion! S(;i((^s liad joined (Ik; Conrcdcracy, 
inal<iiifj (en in all, was cnou^li to put them in j^ood Iminor. 
" Is it not too bad (liosc; Yankees will not let us }j;() our own 
way, and keep their cursed Union to fIiems(dvos ? If tlioy 
force us to it, we may be obliged to drive llieni beyond the 
Susquehanna." Beaiin^gard was in excellent spirits, busy 
measuring off miles of country with his compasses, as if ho 
were dividing empires. 

From (his room I proccM'ded to Ihe ofTuM; of INlr. benjamin, 
the Allorniry-(l(!uei'al of tlu; (^)nfe(lei'al(! States, the most 
brilliant p(!rha|)s of the wholes of tin; famous Southern orators. 
lie is a short, stout man, with a full fac(!, o-live-colored, and 
most decidedly Jewish features, with the brightest large black 
eyes, one of which is somewhat diverse from tlu; other, and a 
brisk, lively, agi'eeahle maiuxn', combined with much vivacity 
of sp(;ech and quickness of utterance. lie is on(^ of the first 
^lawyers or advocates in tin; United States, and had a largo 
pra(5tic(! at Washington, where his aimual rectupts from his 
professi(m were not less than £8,000 to £10,000 u year, liut 
his love of the card-table ivMidered him a prey to older and 
cooler hands, who waited till the sponge was full iit tlu; (tnd 
of tlu^ session, and th(!n squeezed it to the last drop. 

Mr. Benjamin is the most open, frank, an<l cordial ol" the 
Confederates whom I have yvX met. In a few sciconds luj was 
telling me all about the course of (jiovernmeiit with respect to 
])rivatei'rs and letters of marqia; and repris.d, in order prob- 
ably to ascertain what wvnr our views in ICiigland on (he sub- 
ject. 1 observed it was likely the North would not rc^spect 
their flag, and woidd treat their privateers as ))irales. '' We 
liave an easy remedy for that. For any man under our Hag 
whom the authorities of the Unile<l Slates dare to exe<;ute, we 
shall bang two of th(;ir p(;ople." " Suppose, Mr. Attorney- 
General, Kngland, or any of the great powers which decreed 
llu! abolit ion of privateering, refuses to recognize 3'our flag ? " 
"We intend to claim, and do claim, the ex(!rcise of all the 
rights and privilege's of an in(le[)endent sovereign State, and 
any attempt to refuse us the full measure of those rights would 
be an act of hostility to our country." " Hut if Kngland, lor 
exampli', declared your pi'ivateers were pirates?" "As the 
United S(a(es never admi((ed (he f)rincipl(; laid down at the 
Congress of Paris, neither have the; Confed(!i'a((! States. If 
Kngland thinks fit to. declare privateers under oin- flag pirates, 
it would be nothin'; more or less than a declaration of war 



176 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

afjainst us, and we must meet it as best we can." In fact; 
Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of anything ; but his con- 
fidence respecting Great liritain was based a good deal, no 
doubt, on his firm faith in cotton, and in England's utter sub- 
jection to her cotton interest and manufactures. "All this 
coyness about acknowledging a slave power will come right at 
last. We hear our ct)mmissioners liave gone on to Paris, 
which looks as if they had met with no encouragement at 
London ; but we are quite easy in our minds on this point at 
] resent." 

So Great Britain is in a pleasant condition. Mv. Seward 
IS threatening us with war if we recognize the South, and the 
South declares that if we don't recognize their flag, they will 
take it as an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to give 
an assurance to the Government at Washington, that under 
no circumstances will Great Britain recognize the Southern 
rebels ; but, at the same time, Mr. Seward refuses to give any 
assurance; whatever, that the right of neutrals will be respected 
in the imi)ending struggle. 

As I was going down stairs, Mr. Browne called me into his 
room. He said that the Attorney-General and himself were 
in a state of pcn-plexity as to the form in which letters of 
marque and reprisal should be made out. They had con- 
sulted all the books they could get, but found no examples to 
suit their case, and he wished to know, as I was a barrister, 
whether I could aid him. I told him it was not so much my 
regard to my own position as a neutral, as the vafri inscitia 
juris which prevented me throwing any light on the subject. 
There are not only Yankee ship-owners but English firms 
ready with sailors and steamers for the Confederate Govern- 
ment, and the owner of the Camilla might be tempted to part 
with his yacht by the offei-s made to him. 

Being invited to attend a levee or reception held by Mrs. 
Davis, the President's wife, I returned to the hotel to prepare 
for the occasion. On my way I j)assed a company of volun- 
teers, one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three field- 
pieces, on their way to the station for Virginia, followed by a 
crowd of "citizens" and negroes of both sexes, cheering vo- 
ciferously. The band was playing that excellent quick-step 
" Dixie." Th(; men were stout, fine fellows, dressed in coarse 
gray tunics with yellow facings, and French caps. They 
were armed with smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks 
were uniit for marching, being water-proof bags slung from 



MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS AT HOME. 177 

the shoulders. The guns had no caissons, and the shoeing 
of the troops was certainly deficient in soling. Tiie Zouave 
mania is quite as rampant here as it is in New York, and the 
smaHest chihh'en are thi-ust into baggy rc^d breeclies, which 
the L'arned Lipsius might have appreciated, and are sent out 
with fiags and tin swords to impede the liighways. 

The modest vilhi in whicli the President lives is painted 
white, — another "White; House," — and stands m a small 
garden. The; door was oi)en. A colored servant took in our 
names, and i\lr. Ui'owne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom I 
could just mak(! out in the dcmi-jonr of a mothirately-sized 
parlor, surrounded by a '[{^ss ladies and gentlemen, the former 
in bonnets, tlie latter in morning dress a l<i inldi. There 
was no affectation of state or ceremony in the reception. 
Mrs. Davis, whom some of her friends call " Queen Varina,** 
is a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good 
figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike, and clcv(u-, anil she 
seemed a great favorite with those around her, though I 
did hear one of them say, " It must be very nice to be the 
President's wife, and be the first lady in the ConfcMlcrate 
States." Mrs. Davis, whom the President C. S. married en 
secondcs noces, exercised considerable social influence in Wash- 
ington, wlien; I met many of her friends. Siie was just now 
inclined to be angry, because the pa|)ei's contained a report 
that a reward was offered in the North for the head of the 
arch rebel Jetf Davis. "Tiiey are quite capable, I believe," 
she said, " of such acts." There were not mon; than eighteen 
or twenty persons present, as each party came in and staid 
only for a few moments, and, after a time, I made my bow 
and retired, receiving from Mrs. Davis an invitation to come 
in the evening. vvh(;n I would find the President at home. 

At sundown, amid great cheering, tiie guns in front of the. 
State De|)artrnent, fired ten roiuids to announce that Tennessee 
and Arkansas had joined the Confiideracy. 

In tlie evening I dined with Mr. Benjamin and his brolhei'- 
in-law, a gentleman of New Orleans, Colonel WigCall coming 
in at the end of dinner. The New Orleans people of French 
descent, or " Creoles," as they call themselves, speak French 
in preference to English, and Mr. Benjamin's bi-other-in-law 
labored considerably in trying to make himself understood in 
our vernacular. Tlie conversation. Franco- Fnglish, very 
pleasant, for Mr. Benjamin is agreeable and livcily. He is 
certain (hat the Enjjlish law autlioriti(!s nmst advise the Gov- 



178 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ernment that the blockade of the Southern ports is ille<2jal so 
long as the President claims them to be ports of the United 
States. " At present," he said, " their paper blockade does no 
harm ; the season for shipping cotton is over ; but in October 
next, when the Mississippi is floating cotton by the thousands 
of bales, and all our wharves are full, it is inevitable that the 
Yaidiees must come to trouble with this attempt to coerce us." 
Mr. Benjamin walked back to the hotel with me, and we found 
our room full of tobacco-smoke, iilibusters, and conversation, in 
which, as sleep was impossible, we were obliged to join. I 
resisted a vigorous attempt of Mr. G. N. Sanders and a friend 
of liis to take me to visit a planter who had a beaver-dam 
some miles outside Montgomery. They succeeded in capturing 
Mr. Deasy. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mr. Wipfall on the Confederacy — Intended departure from the South 

— Northern !ij)iitliy and Southern activity — Future prospoets of 
the Union — Soutii (Carolina and eotton — The theory of slavery 

— Indifierence at New York — J^eparture from Montgomery. 

May St/i. — I tried (o write, as I have taken my place in the 
steamer to Mobile to-morrow, and I was obliged to do my best 
in a room full of people, constantly disturbed by visitors. 
Early this morning, as usual, ray faithful Wigf'all comes in 
and sits by my bedside, and passing his hands through his 
locks, pours out his ideas with wonderful lucidity aiul odd 
affectation of logic all his own. " We are a peculiar people, 
sir ! You don't undersland us, and you can't understand us, 
because we are known to you only by Northern writers and 
Northei'n papers, who know nothing of us themselves, or mis- 
represent what they do know. We are an agricultural people ; 
we are a primitive but a civilized peoj)le. We have no cities — 
we don't want them. We have no literature — we don't need 
any yet. We have no press — we are glad of it. We do not 
re(|uire a press, because we go out and discuss all public ques- 
tions from the stump with our people. We have no com- 
mercial marine — no navy — we don't want them. We are 
better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you 
can protect you-r own vessels. We want no manufactures: 
we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. 
As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our 
cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from 
those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up 
money besides. But with the Yankees we will never trade — 
never. Not one pound of cotton sJiall ever go from the South 
to their accursed cities ; not one ounce of their steel or their 
manufactures shall ever cross our border." And so on. What 
the Senator who is preparing a bill for drafting the people 
into the army fears is, that the North will begin active opera- 
tions before the South is ready for resistance. " Give us till 



180 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

November to drill our men, and we shall be irresistible." 
He deprecates any offensive movement, and is opposed to 
an attack on Washington, which many journals here advocate. 

Mr. Walker sent me over a letter recommending me to all 
officers of the Confederate States, and I received an invitation 
ti'oin the President to dine with him to-morrow, which I was 
much chagrined to be obliged to refuse. In fact, it is most im- 
portant to complete my Southern tour speedily, as all mail 
communication will soon be suspended from the South, and 
the blockade effectually cuts off any communication by sea. 
RaUs torn up, bridges broken, telegraphs down — trains 
searched — the war is begun. The North is pouring its hosts 
to the battle, and it has met the pajans of the conquering 
Charlestonians with a universal yell of indignation and an 
oath of vengeance. 

I expressed a belief in a letter, written a few days after my 
arrival (March 27th), that the South would never go back 
into the Union. The North think that they can coerce the 
South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong ; 
but I am convinced that the South can only be forced back by 
such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the 
feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can be made 
by the North, but success must destroy the Union as it has 
been constituted in times past. A strong Government must 
be the logical consequence of victory, and the triumph of 
the South will be attended by a similar result, for which, 
indeed, many Southerners are very well disposed. To the 
people of the Confederate States there would be no teri'or in 
such an issue, for it appears to me they are pining for a 
strong Government exceedingly. The North must accept it, 
whether they like it or not. 

Neither party — if such a term can be applied to the rest 
of the United States, and to those States which disclaim the 
authority of the Federal Government — was prepared for 
the aggressive or resisting power of the other. Already 
the Confederate States perceive that they cannot carry all 
before them with a rush, while the North have learned 
that they must put forth all their strength to make good a 
tithe of their lately uttered threats. But the Montgomery 
Government are anxious to gain time, and to prepare a 
regular army. The North, distracted by ap[)rehensions of 
vast disturbance in their complicated relations, are chunoriag 
for instant action and speedy consummation. Tlie counsels 



THE FAITH OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 181 

of moderate men, as they were called, have been utterly 
overruled. 

The wiiole foundation on which South Carolina rests is 
cotton and a certain amount of rice ; or rather she bases 
her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in Europe for 
those products of her soil, believing and asserting, as she 
does, that Engl:nul and France cannot and will not do witiiout 
them. Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter 
en(annberiMg the gi'ound. Rice, witiiout demand for it, is un- 
salable grain in store and on the field. Cotton at ten cents 
a pound is bouiulless prosperity, em|)ire, and superiority, and 
rice or grain need no longer be regarded. 

In the matter of slave-labor, South Carolina argues pretty 
much in the following manner: England and France (she 
says) require our {)roducts. In order to meet their wants, we 
must cultivate our soil. There is only one M'ay of doing so. 
The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of 
the year ; he cannot work in the manner requij-ed by the crops. 
He must, therelbre, employ a race suited to the labor, and that 
is a race which will only work when it is obliged to do so. 
That race was imported i'rom Africa, under the sanction of the 
law, by onr ancestors, when we vvei-e a British colony, and it 
has been ibstered by us, so that its increase here lias been as 
great as that of tlie most flourishing people in the wurld. In 
otlier |)hiccs, wiiere its labor was not productive or imperative- 
ly essential, that race has been made free, sometimes with dis- 
astrous consequences to itself and to industry. But we will 
not make it free. We caimot do so. We hold that slavery is 
essential to our existence as producers of what Europe re- 
quires ; nay more, we maintain it is in the abstract riglit in 
principle; and some of us go so far as to maintain tiiat the 
only [)i-oper form of society, according to the law of God and 
tiie exigencies of man, is that which has slavery as its basis. 
As to the slave, he is hap{)ier far in his state of servitude, 
more civilized and religious, tlian he is or could be if free or in 
his native Africa. For this system we will liglit to the end. 

In the evening I paid farewell visits, and spent an hour witii 
Mr. Toombs, who is unquestionably one of the most original, 
quaint, and earnest of the Southern leaders, and whose elo- 
quence and power as a debater are greatly esteemed by his 
eounli-ynien. lie is sometiiing of an Anglo-maniac, and an 
Anglo-phobist — a combination not unusual in America — 
that is, he is proud of being connected with and descended 



182 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

from respectable English families, and admires our mixed con- 
stitution, whilst he is an enemy to what is called English pol- 
icy, and is a strong pro-slavery champion. Wigfall and he are 
very uneasy about the scant supply of gunpowder in the 
Southern States, and the difficulty of obtaining it. 

In the evening had a little reunion in the bedroom as be- 
fore. — Mr. Wigfall, Mr. Keitt, an eminent Southern politi- 
cian, Col. Pickett, Mr. Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. George 
Sanders, and others. The last-named gentleman was dismissed 
or recalled from his post at Liverpool, because he fraternized 
with Mazzini and other Red Republicans a ce qtC on dit. 
Here he is a slavery man, and a friend of an oligarchy. Your 
" Riglits of Man " man is often most inconsistent with himself, 
and is generally found associated with the men of force and 
violence. 

May 9th. — My feithful Wigfall was good enough to come 
in early, in order to show me some comments on my letters in 
the " New York Times." It appears the papers are angry 
because I said that New York was apathetic when I landed, 
and they try to prove I was wrong by showing there was a 
" glorious outburst of Union feeling," after the news of the 
fall of Sumter. But I now know that the very apathy of 
which I spoke was felt by the Government of Washington, 
and was most weakening and embarrassing to them. What 
would not the value of "the glorious outburst" have been, had 
it taken place before the Charleston batteries had opened on 
Sumter — when the Federal Hag, for example, was fired on, 
fiying from the " Star of the West," or when Beauregard cut 
off supplies, or Bragg threatened Pickens, or the first shovel 
of earth was thrown up in hostile battery ? But no ! New 
York was then engaged in discussing State rights, and in 
reading articles to prove the new Government would be traitors 
if they endeavored to reinforce the Federal forts, or were 
perusing leaders in favor of the Southern Government. 
Haply, they may remember one, not so many weeks old, in 
which the " New York Herald " compared Jeff Davis and his 
Cabinet to the " Great Rail Splitter," and Seward, and Chase, 
and came to the conclusion that the former " were gentlemen" 
— (a matter of which it is quite incompetent to judge) — 
" and would, and ougiit to succeed." The glorious outburst of 
" Union feeling " which threatened to demolish the " Herald " 
office, has created a most wonderful change in the views of the 
proprietor, whose diverse-eyed vision is now directed solely to 



FAREWELL LEVlilE. 183 

the beauties of the Union, and whose faith is expressed in " a 
heai'ty adhesion to the Government of our country." New 
York must pay the penalty of its indifference, and bear the 
consequences of Hstening to such counsellors. 

Mr. Deasy, much dilapidated, returned about twelve o'clock 
from his jilanter, who was drunk when he went over, and 
would not let him go to the beaver-dam. To console him, the 
planter stayed up all night drinking, and waking him up at 
intervals, that he might refresh him with a glass of whiskey. 
This man was well off, owned land, and a good stock of slaves, 
but he must have been a "mean white," who had raised him- 
self in the world. He lived in a three-roomed wooden cabin, 
and in one of the rooms he kept his wife shut up from the 
stranger's gaze. One of his negroes was unwell, and he took 
Deasy to see him. The result of his examination was, " Nig- 
ger ! I guess you won't live more than an hour." His diagnosis 
was quite correct. 

Before my departure I had a little farewell levee — Mr. 
Toombs, Mr. Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mi*. Walker, Major 
Deas, Col. Pickett, Major Calhoun, Captain Ripley, and 
others — who were exceedingly kind with letters of introduc- 
tion and offers of service. Dined as usual on a composite 
dinner — Southern meat and poultry bad — at three o'clock, 
and at four, p. M., drove down to the steep banks of the Alabama 
River, where the castle-like hulk of the " Southern Republic " 
was waiting to receive us. I bade good-by to Montgomery 
without i-egret. The native people were not very attractive, 
and the city has nothing to make up for their deficiency, but 
of my friends there I must always retain pleasant memories, 
and, indeed, I hope some day I shall be able to keep my 
promise to return and see more of the Confederate ministers 
and their chief. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The River Alabama — Voyage by steamer — Selma — Our captain 
and his slaves — "Running" slaves — Negro views of happiness 
Mobile — Hotel — The city — Mr. Forsyth. 

The vessel was nothing more than a vast wooden house, of 
three separate stories, floating on a pontoon wliich upheld the 
engine, with a dining-liall or saloon on the second story sur- 
rounded by sleeping-berths, and a nest of smaller rooms up- 
stairs ; on the metal roof was a " musical " instrument called 
a " calliope," played like a piano by keys, which acted on 
levers and valves, admitting steam into metal cups, where it 
produced the requisite notes, — high, resonant, and not un- 
pleasing at a moderate distance. It is 417 miles to Mobile; 
but at this season the steamer can maintain a good rate of 
speed, as there is very little cotton or cargo to be taken on 
board at the landings, and the stream is full. 

The river is about 200 yards broad, and of the color of 
chocolate and milk, with high, steep, wooded banks, rising so 
much above the surface of the stream that a person on the 
upper deck of the towering " Southern Republic" cannot get a 
glimpse of the fields and country beyond. High banks and 
bluffs spring up to the height of 150 or even 200 feet above 
the river, the breadth of which is so uniform as give the 
Alabama the appearance of a canal, only relieved by sudden 
bends and rapid curves. The surface is covered with masses 
of drift - wood, whole trees, and small islands of branches. 
Now and then a sharp, black, fang-like projection standing 
stilHy in the current gives warning of a snag, but the helms- 
man, wiio conmiands the whole course of the river, from an 
elevated house amidships on the upper deck, can see these in 
time ; and at night pine-boughs are lighted in iron cressets at 
the bows to illuminate the water. 

The captain, who was not particular whether his name was 
spelt Maher, or Meaher, or Meagher (les troi's se disent), was 
evidently a character, — perhaps a good one. One with a 



THE "SOUTHERN REPUBLIC." 185 

gray eye full of cunning and of some humor, strongly marked 
features, and a very Celtic mouth of the Kerry type. He 
soon attached liiniself to me, and favored me with some won- 
derful yarns, which I hope lie was not foolish enough to think 
I believed. One relating to a wholesale destruction and mas- 
sacre of Indians, he narrated with evident gusto. Pointing 
to one of the bluffs, he said tiiat, some thirty years ago, tiie' 
wiiolc of the Indians in the district being surrounded by the 
whites, betook themselves to that spot, and remained there 
witlioul any means of escape, till they were quite starved out. 
So they sent down to know if the whites would let them go, 
and it was agreed that they should he permitted to move down 
the river in boats. Wiien the day came, and they were all 
afloat, the whites antici()ated the boat-massacre of Nana Sahib 
at Cawnpore, and destroyed the helpless red skins. Many 
huniheds thus perished, and the whole affair was very much 
approved of. 

Tiie value of land on the sides of this river is great, as it 
yields nine to eleven bales of cotton to the acre, — worth £10 
a bale at present prices. The only evidences of this wealth 
to be seen by us consisted of the cotton sheds on the top of 
the banks, and slides of timber, with steps at each side down 
to the landings, so constructed that the cotton bales could be 
shot down on board the vessel. These shoots and staircases 
are generally protected by a roof of planks, and lead to un- 
known regions inhabited by niggers and their masters, the 
latter all talking politics. They never will, never can be con- 
quered, — nothing on earth could induce them to go back 
into tlie Union. They will burn every bale of cotton, and 
fire every house, and lay waste every field and homestead, 
before they will yield to the Yankees. And so they talk 
through the glimmering of bad cigars for hours. 

The management of the boat is dexterous, — as she ap- 
proaches a landing-place, the helm is [)ut hard over, to tiie 
screaming of the steam-pipe and the wild strains of " Dixie " 
floating out of the throats of the calliope, and as the engines 
are detached, one wheel is worked forward, and the otiier 
backs water, so she soon turns head up stream, and is then 
gently paddled up to the river bank, to which she is just kept 
up by steam — the plank is run ashore, and the few passen- 
gers who ai'e coming in or out are lighted on their way by the 
flames of pine in an iron basket, swinging above the bow by a 
long pole. Then we see them vanishing into black darkness 



186 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

up the steps, or cominj^ down clearer and clearer till they 
stand in the full blaze of the beacon which casts dark shadows 
on the yellow water. The air is jflistening with fire-flies, 
which dot the darkness with specks and points of flame, just 
us sparks fly throuj>;h the embers of tinder or half-burnt paper. 

Some of the landings were by far mon; important than 
others. There were some, for example, where an iron rail- 
road was worked down the bank by windlasses for hoisting 
up goods ; others where the negroes half-naked leaped ashore, 
and rushing at piles of firewood, tossed them on board to feci 
the engine, which, all uncovered and open to the lower deck, 
lighted up the darkness by the glare from the stoke-holes, 
which cried forever, " Give, give ! " as the negroes cease- 
lessly thrust the pine-beams into their hungry maws. I could 
understand how easily a steamer can "burn up," and how 
hopeless escape would be under such circumstances. The 
whole framework of the vessel is of the lightest resinous pine, 
so raw that the turpentine oozes out through the paint ; the 
hull is a mere shell. If the vessel once caught fire, all that 
could be done would be to turn her round, and run her to the 
bank, in the hope of holding there long enough to enable the 
people to escape into the trees ; but if she were not near a 
landing, many must be lost ; as the bank is steep down, the 
vessel cannot be run aground ; and in some places the trees 
are in eight and ten feet of water. A few minutes would suf- 
fice to set the vessel in a blaze from stem to stern ; and if there 
were cotton on board, the bales would burn almost like pow- 
der. The scene at each landing was repeated, with few vari- 
ations, ten times till we reached Selma, 110 miles distance, at 
11. oO at night. 

Selma, wiiich is connected with the Tennessee and Missis- 
sip[)i rivers by railroad, is built upon a steep, lofty blufl", and 
the lights ill the windows, and the lofty hotels above; us, put 
uie in mind of the old town of Edinburgh, seen from Prince's 
Street. Beside us there was a huge storied wharf, so that our 
passengers could step on shore from any deck they pleased. 
Here Mr. Deas}', being attacked by illness, became alarmed 
at the idea of continuing his journey without any opportunity 
of medical assistance, and went on shore. 

May lOth. — Tlie cabin of one of these steamers, in the 
month of May, is not favorable to sleep. The wooden beams 
of the engines (U'eak and scream " consumedly," and the great 
engines themselves throb as if they would break through their 



I 



ON BOARD THE STEAMER. 187 

thin, pulse covers of pine, — and the whistle sounds, and the 
calliope shrieks out " Dixie " incessantly. So, when I was up 
and dressed, breakfast was over, and I had an op{)ortunity of 
seeing the slaves on board, male and female, acting as stew- 
ards and stewardesses, at their morning meal, which they took 
with much good spirits and decorum. Tliey were nicely 
dressed — clean and neat. I was forced to admit to myself 
that their Ashantee grandsires and grandmothers, or their 
Kroo and Dahomey progenitors were certainly less comforta- 
ble and well clad, and that these slaves had other social ad- 
vantages, though I could not recognize the force of the Bishop 
of Georgia's assertion, that from slavery must come the sole 
hope of, and machinery for, the evangelization of Africa. I 
confess I would not give much for the influence of the stew- 
ards and stewardesses in Christianizing the blacks. 

The river, the scenery, and the scenes were just the same 
as yesterday's — high banks, cotton-slides, wooding stations, 
cane brakes — and a very miserable negro population, if the 
specimens of women and children at the landings fairly repre- 
sented the mass of the slaves. They were in strong contrast 
to the comfortable, well-dressed domestic slaves on board, and 
it can well be imagined there is a wide diiFerence between the 
classes, and that those condemned to work in the open fields 
must suflf'rr exceedingly. 

A passenger told us the captain's story. A number of 
planters, the narrator among them, subscribed a thousand dol- 
lars each to get up a vessel for the purpose of running a cargo 
of slaves, with the understanding they were to pay so much 
for the vessel, and so much per head if she succeeded, and so 
much if she was taken or lost. The vessel made her voyage 
to the coast, was laden with native Africans, and in due time 
made her a{)pearance off Mobile. The collector heard of her, 
but, oddly enough, the sheriff was not about at the time, tiie 
United States Marshal was away, and as the vessel could not 
b(! seen next morning, it was fair to suppose she had gone up 
the river, or somewhere or another. But it so happened that 
Captain Maher, then commanding a river steamer called the 
Czar (a name once very appropriate for the work, l)ut since the 
serf emancipation rather out of place), found himself in the 
neighborhood of the brig about nightfall ; next morning, in- 
deed, the Czar was at her moorings in the river ; but Captain 
Maher began to grow rich, he had fine negroes fresh run on 
his land, and bought fresh acres, and finally built the " South- 



188 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ern Republic." The planters asked him for their share of the 
slaves. Captain Maher laughed pleasantly j he did not under- 
stand what they meant. If he had done anything wrong, they 
had their legal remedy. They were completely beaten ; for 
they could not have recourse to the tribunals in a case which 
rendered them liable to capital punishment. And so Captain 
Maher, as an act of grace, gave them a few old niggers, and 
kept the rest of the cargo. 

It was worth while to see the leer with which he listened to 
this story about himself. " Wall now ! You think them niggers 
I've abord came from Africa ! I'll show you. Jist come up 
here, Bully ! " A boy of some twelve years of age, stout, fat, 
nearly naked, came up to us ; his color was jet black, his wool 
close as felt, his cheeks were marked with regular parallel 
scars, and his teeth very white, looked as if they had been 
filed to a point, his belly was slightly protuberant, and his 
chest was marked with tracings of tattoo marks. 

" What's your name, sir ? " 

" My name Bully." 

" Where were you born ? " 

" Me born Sout Karliner, sar ! ' 

" There, you see he wasn't taken from Africa," exclaimed 
the Captain, knowingly. " I've a lot of these black South 
Caroliny niggers abord, haven't I, Bully ? " 

« Yas, sar." 

" Are you happy. Bully ? " 

« Yas, sar." 

" Show how you're happy." 

Here the boy rubbed his stomach, and grinning with delight, 
said, " Yummy ! yummy ! plenty belly full." 

" That's what I call a real happy feelosophical chap," quoth 
the Captain. " I guess you've got a lot in your country can't 
pat their stomachs and say, ' yummy, yummy, plenty belly 
full ! '" 

" Where did he get those marks on his face ? " 

" Oh, them ? Wall, it's a way them nigger women has of 
marking their children to know them ; isn't it, Bully ? " 

" Yas, sar ! me 'spose so ! " 

" And on his chest ? " 

" Wall, r'ally I do b'l'eve them's marks agin the smallpox." 

« Why are his teeth filed ? " 

" Ah, there now ! You'd never have guessed it ; Bully 
done that himself, for the greater ease of biting his vittels." 



MOBILE. 189 

In fact, the lad, and a good many of the hands, were the 
results of Captain Maher's little sail in the Czar. 

" We're obleeged to let 'em in some times to keep up the 
balance agin the niggers you run into Canaydy." 

From 1848 to 1852 there were no slaves run ; but since 
the migrations to Canada and the personal liberty laws, it has 
been found profitable to run them. There is a bucolic ferocity 
about these Southern people which will stand them good stead 
in the shock of battle. How the Spartans would have fought 
against any barbai'ians who came to emancipate their slaves, 
or the Romans have smitten those who would manumit slave 
and creditor together ! 

To-niglit, on the lower deck, amid wood fagots, and barrels, 
a dance of negroes was arranged by an enthusiast, who desired 
to show how " happy they were." That is the favorite theme 
of the Southerners ; the gallant Captain Maher becomes quite 
eloquent when he points to Bully's prominent " yummy," and 
descants on the misery of his condition if he had been left to 
the precarious chances of obtaining such developments in his 
native land ; then turns a quid, and, as if uttei'ing some sacred 
refrain to the universal hymn of the South, says, " Yes, sir, 
they're "the happiest people on the face of the airth !" 

There was a fiddlei', and also a banjo-player, who played 
uncouth music to the clumsiest of dances, which it would be 
insulting to compare to the worst Irish jig ; and the men with 
immense gravity and great effusion of sudor, shuffled and cut 
and heeled and buckled to each other with an overwhelming 
solemnity, till the rum-bottle warmed them up to the lighter 
graces of the dance, when they became quite overpowering. 
" Yes, sir, jist look at them, how they're enjoying it ; they're 
the happiest people on the face of the airth." When " wood- 
ing " and firing up, they don't seem to be in the possession of 
the same exquisite felicity. 

May Wth. — At early dawn the steamer went its way 
through a broad bay of snags, bordered witli drift-wood, and 
with steam-trumpet and calliope announced its arrival at the 
quay of Mobile, which presented a fringe of tall warehouses, 
and shops along-side, over which were names indicating Scotch, 
Irish, English, many Spanish, German, Italian, and French 
owners. Captain Maher at once set off to his plantation, 
and we descended the stories of the walled castle to the beach, 
and walked on towards' the " Battle House," so called from 
the name of its proprietor, for Mobile has not yet had its 



190 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

fight, like New Orleans. The quays, which usually, as we 
were told, are linojd with stately hulls and a forest of masts, 
were deserted; althougli Hie port was not actually blockaded, 
there were squadrons of the United States ships at Pensacola, 
on the east, and at New Orleans, on the west. 

The hotel, a fine building of the American stamp, was the 
seat of a Vigilance Committee, and as we put down our names 
in the book, they were minutely inspected by some gentlemen 
who came out of the parlor. It was fortunate they did not 
find traces of Lincolnisra about us, as it appeared by the papei's 
that they were busy deporting " Abolitionists " after certain 
preliminary processes supposed to — 

" Give them a rise, and open their eyes 
To a sense of their situation." 

The citizens were busy in drilling, marching, and drum-beat- 
ing, and the Confederate flag flew from every spire and 
steeple. The day was so hot, that it was little more inviting 
to go out in the sun than it would be in the dogdays at 
Malaga, to which, by the by. Mobile bears some " kinder- 
sorter " resemblance ; but, nevertheless, I sallied forth, and 
had a drive on a shell road by the head of the bay, where 
there were pretty villarettes in charming groves of magnolia, 
orange-trees, and lime-oaks. Wide streets of similar houses 
spring out to meet the country through sandy roads ; some 
worthy of Streatham or Belham, and all surrounded in such 
vegetation as Kew might envy. 

Many Mobilians called, and among them the mayor, Mr. 
Forsyth, in whom 1 recognized the most remarkable of the 
Southern Commissioners I had met at Washington. Mr. 
Magee, the acting British Consul, was also good enough to- 
wait upon me, with offers of any assistance in his power. I 
hear he has most diflicult questions to deal with, arising out 
of the claims of distressed British subjects, and disputed 
nationality. In the evening, the Consul and Dr. Nott, a 
savant, and physician of Mobile, well known to the ethnolo- 
gists for his work on the " Types of Mankind," written con- 
jointly with the late Mr. Gliddon, dined with me, and I 
learned from them that, notwithstanding the intimate commer- 
cial relations between Mobile and the great Northern citi»8S, 
the people here are of the most ultra-secessionist doctrines 
The wealth and manhood of the city will be devoted to repel 
the " Liucolnite mercenaries " to the last. 



MOBILE. 191 

After dinner we walked through the city, which abounds in 
oyster saloons, drinking-houses, lager-bier and wine shops, and 
gambling and dancing places. The market was well worthy 
of a visit — something like St. John's at Liverpool on a Sat- 
urday night, crowded with negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and 
mestizos of all sorts, Spanish, Italian, and French, speaking 
their own tongues, or a quaint lingua franca, and dressed in 
very striking and pretty costumes. The fruit and vegetable 
stalls displayed very fine produce, and some staples, remark- 
able for novelty, ugliness, and goodness. After our stroll 
we went into one of the great oyster saloons, and in a room 
up-stairs had opportunity of tasting those great bivalvians 
in the form of natural fish puddings, fried in batter, roasted, 
stewed, devilled, broiled-, and in many other ways, plus raw. 
I am bound to observe that the Mobile people ate them as if 
there was no blockade, and as though oysters were a specific 
for political indigestions and civil wars ; a fierce Marseillais 
are they — living in the most foreign-looking city I have yet 
seen in the States. My private room in the hotel was large, 
well-lighted with gas, and exceedingly well furnished in the 
German fashion, with French pendule and mirrors. The 
charge for a private room varies from £1 to £1 5s. a day ; the 
bedroom and boai'd are charged separately, from 10$. 6c?. to 
12«. 6c?. a day, but meals served in the private room are all 
charged extra, and heavily too. Exclusiveness is an aristo- 
cratic taste which must be paid for. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Visit to Forts Oainos and Morcan — War to the knife the cry of the 
South — The " State " and the " States " — Hay of Mohile — The 
forts and their inmates — Opinions as to an attaclc on Wasliiugton 
— Humors of actual war. 

May I2th. — Mr. Forsyth had been good enoiic;h to invite me 
to an excursion down the Bay of Mohih*, to the forts built by 
Uncle Sam and his French en2;ineers to sink his Britishers — 
now turned by " C. S. A." agjainst the hated Stars and Stripes. 
The mayor and tiie principal merchants and many politicians 
— and are not all men politicians in America ? — formed the 
party. If any judgment of men's acts can be formed from 
their words, the Mobilites, who are the representatives of the 
third greatest part of the United States, will perish ere they 
submit to the Yankees and people of New York. I have 
now been in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
bama, and in none of these great States have I foinid the 
least indication of the Union sentiment, or of the attachment 
for the Union which INIr. Seward always assumes to exist in 
the South. If there were any considerable amount of it, I 
was in a position as a neutral to have been aware of its exist- 
ence. 

Those who might have at one time opposed secession, have 
now bowed their heads to the majesty of the majority ; and 
with the cowardice, whicli is the result of the irresponsible 
and crmd tyranny of the multitude, hasten to swell the cry of 
revolution. But the multitude are the law in the United States. 
" There's a divinity doth hedge " the mob here, which is omni- 
potent and all good. The majority in each State determines its 
political status according to Southern views. The Northerners 
are endeavoring to maintain that thi? majority of the peoi)le in 
the mass of the States geiKM'ally shall regulate the point for 
each State individually and collectively. If there be any party 
in the Southern States which thinks such an attempt justifiable. 



I 



FORT GAINES, FORT MORGAN. 193 

it sits silent and fearful and hopeless in darkness and sorrow 
hid from the lif:;ht of day. Gc^iicral Scott, who was a short time 
ago written of in the usual inllatiid style, to whicii res|»eetahie 
military mediocrity and success are entitled in tlie States, is 
now reviled by the Southern ])a[)ers as an infamous hoary trai- 
tor and the like. If an otlicer [)refers his allejijiance to the 
United Stat(;s i\;v^, and remains in the Federal service after 
his State has gone out, his property is liable to confiscation by 
the State autiiorities, and his family and kindred are exposed 
to the gravest suspicion, and must prove their loyalty by ex- 
tra z(!al in the cause of Secession. 

Our merry company C()m[)rised naval and military officers 
in the service of tiie Confederate States, journalists, politi- 
cians, professional men, merchants, and not one of them had 
a word but of hiite and execi-ation for the North. Tiie Brit- 
ish and German settlers are (juite as vehement as the natives 
in u{)holding States' rights, and among the most ardent up- 
holders of slavery are the Irish proprietors and mercantile 
classes. 

The Bay of Mobile, which is about thirty miles long, with 
a breadth varying from three to seven miles, is formed by the 
outfall of the Alabama and of the Tombigbee Rivers, and is 
shallow and dangerous, full of banks and trees, embedded in 
the sands ; but all large vessels lie at the entrance between 
Fort Morgan atid Fort Gaines, to the satisfaction of the mas- 
ters, who are thus spared the trouble with their crews which 
occurs in the low haunts of a maritime town. Tiie cotton is 
sent down in lighters, which em[)loy many hands at high 
wages. The shores are low wooded, and are dotted here and 
there with pretty villas ; but present no attractive scenery. 

The sea-breeze somewhat alleviated the fierceness of the 
sun, which was however too hot to be quite agreeabh^ Our 
steamer, crowded to the sponsons, made little way against the 
tide ; but at length, after nearly four hours' sail, we hauled up 
along-side a jetty at Fort Gaines, which is on tlie right hand or 
western exit of the harbor, and would command, were it fin- 
ished, the light-draft channel ; it is now merely a shell of 
masonry, but Colonel Hardee, who has charg(! of the defences 
of Mobile, told me that they would finish it s[)eedily. 

The Colonel is an agreeable, delicate-looking man, scarcely 

of middle age, and is well known in the States as the author 

of " The Tactics," which is, however, merely a translation of 

the Fn.'nch manual of arms. He does not appear to be pos- 

9 



19^* MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

sessed of any great energy or capacity, but is, no donbt, a 
respectable ofHcer. 

Upon landing we found a small body of men on guard in 
the fort. A few cannon of moderate calibre were mounted on 
the sand-hills and on (lie beach. We entered the iniHiiished 
work, and were received with a salute. The men felt dilhculty 
in coinbinitig discipline with citizenship. They were "bored" 
with thi'ir saiul-liill, and one of tliem asked me when I " thought 
them damned Yankees were coming, lie wanted to touch off 
a few pills he knew would be good for their complaint." I 
must say I could sympathize with the feelings of the young 
olhcer who said he would sooner have a day with the Lincoln- 
ites, than a week with the mosquitoes for which this locality is 
famous. 

From Fort Gaines the steamer ran across to Fort Morgan, 
about three miles distant, passing in its way seven vessels, 
mostly British, at anchor, where hundre<ls may be seen, I am 
told, during tlie cotton season. This work has a fornndable 
sea face, and may give great trouble to Uncle Sam. when he 
wants to visit his loving subjects in Mobile in his gunboats. It 
is the work of Bernard, I presume, and like most of liis designs 
has a weak long base towards the land; but it is provided with 
a wet ditch and drawbridge, with demi lunes covering the cur- 
tains, and has a regular bastioned trace. It has one row of 
casemates, armed with thirty-two and forty-two pounders. The 
barbette guns are eight-inch and ten-inch guns; the external 
works at the salients, are armed with howitzers and field-pieces, 
and as we crossed tlu; drawbridge, a salute was tired from a 
field battery, on a flanking bastion, in our honor. 

Inside the work was crammed with men, some of whom 
slept in the casemates — others in tents in the parade grounds 
and enceinte of the fort. They were Alabama Volunteers, 
and as sturdy a lot of fellows as ever shouldered musket ; 
dressed in homespun coarse gray suits, with blue and yellow 
worsted facings and stripes — to Euro|)ean eyes not very re- 
spertfid to tlieir otlicers, but very obedient, 1 am told, and very 
peremptorily ordered about, as I heard. 

There were 700 or 800 men in the work, and an undue 
proportion of ollicers, all of whom were introduced to the 
strangers in turn. The ollicers were a very gentlemanly, 
nice-looking set of young fellows, and several of them had 
just come over from Eurojx^ to take up arms for their State. 
I forget the name of the officer in command, though 1 cannot 



NEWS FROM THE NORTH. 195 

forget his courtesy, nor an excellent lunch he gave us in his 
casemate aficr a hot walk round the parapets, and some prac- 
tice with solid shot from the barbette guns, which did not tend 
to maiie me think much of the greatly-be-praised Columhiads. 
One of the othcers named Maury, a relative of " deep-sea 
Maury," struck me as an ingenious and clever officer ; the 
utmost harmony, kindliness, and devotion to the cause prevailed 
among the garrison, from the chief down to the youngest en- 
sign. In its i)resent state the Fort would suffer exceedingly 
from a heavy bombardment — the magazines would be in 
danger, and the traverses are inadequate. All the barracks 
and wooden buildings should be destroyed if they wish to 
avoid the fate of Sumter. 

On our cruise homewards, in the enjoyment of a cold din- 
ner, we had the inevitable discussion of the Northern and 
Southern contest. Mr. Forsyth, the editor and proprietor of 
the " Mobile Register," is impassioned for the cause, though 
he was not at one time consid(!red a pure Southerner. There 
is difference of o()inion relative to an attack on Washington. 
General St. George Cooke, commanding the army of Virginia 
on the Potomac, declares there is no intention of attacking it, 
or any place outside the limits of that free and sovereign State. 
But then the conduct of the Federal Government in Mary- 
land is considered by the more fiery South(u-uers to justify the 
expulsion of " Lincoln and his Myrmidons," " the Border 
Ruffians and Cassius M. Clay," from the cai)ital. Butler has 
seized on the Relay House, on the junction of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad, with the rail from Washington, and has 
displayed a good deal of vigor since his arrival at Annapolis. 
He is a Democrat, and a celebrated criminal lawyer in Massa- 
chusetts. Troops are pouring into New York, and ai'e pre- 
paring to attack Alexandria, on the Virginia side, below 
Washington and the Navy Yard, where a large Confederate 
flag is flying, which can be seen from the President's windows 
in the White House. 

Tiiere is a secret soreness even here at the small effect 
produced in England compared with what they anticipated by 
the attack on Sumter ; but hopes are excited that Mr. Greg- 
ory, who was travelling through the States some time ago, 
will have a strong party to support his fortlicomiiig motion 
for a recognition of the South. The next coullict which takes 
place will be more blooily than that at Sumter. The gladia- 
tors are approaching — "Washington, Annapolis, Pennsylvania 



196 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

are military departments, each with a chief and Staff, to which 
is now added that of Ohio, under Major G. B. McClellan, 
Major-General of Ohio Volunteers at Cincinnati. The au- 
tliorities on each side are busy administering oaths of alle- 
giance. 

The harbor of Charleston is reported to be under blockade 
by the Niagara steam frigate ; and a force of United States 
troops at St. Louis, Missouri, under Captain Lyon, has at- 
tacked and dispersed a body of State Militia under one Briga- 
dier-General Frost, to the intense indignation of all Mobile. 
The argument is, that Missouri gave up the St. Louis Arsenal 
to the United States Goverament, and could take it back if 
she pleased, and was certainly competent to prevent the 
United States troops stirring beyond the Arsenal. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Pensacola and Fort Pickens — Neutrals and their friends — Coasting 
— Sharks — Tlie blockading ileet — The stars and stripes, and 
stars and bars — Domestic feuds caused by the war — Captain 
Adams and General Bragg — Interior of Fort Pickens. 

May I'^th. — I was busy making arrangements to get to 
Pensacola, and Fort Pickens, all day. The land journey was 
represented as being most tedious and exceedingly comfortless 
in all respects, through a waste of sand, in which we ran the 
chance of being smothered or lost. And then I had set my 
mind on seeing Fort Pickens as well as Pensacola, and it 
would be difficult, to say the least of it, to get across from an 
enemy's camp to the Federal fortress, and then return again. 
The tjnited States squadron blockaded the port of Pensacola, 
but I thought it likely they would permit me to run in to visit 
Fort Pickens, and that the Federals would allow me to sail 
thence across to General Bragg, as they might be assured I 
would not communicate any information of what I had seen in 
my character as neutral to any but the journal in Europe, 
winch I represented, and in the interests of which I was 
bound to see and report all that I could as to the state of both 
parties. It was, at all events, worth while to make the at- 
tempt, and after a long search I heard of a schooner which 
was ready for the voyage at a reasonable rate, all things con- 
sidered. 

Mr. Forsyth asked if I had any objection to take with me 
three gentlemen of Mobile, who were anxious to be of the 
party, as they wanted to see their friends at Pensacola, where 
it was believed a " fight " was to come off immediately. Since 
I came South I have seen the daily announcement that " Braxton 
Bragg is ready," and his present state of preparation must be 
beyond all conception. But here was a difiiculty. I told Mr. 
Forsyth that I could not possibly assent to any persons coming 
with me who were not neutrals, or prepared to adhere to the 
obligations of neutrals. There was a suggestion that I should 
say these gentlemen were my friends, but as I had only seen 



198 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

two of them on board the steamer yesterday, I could not ac- 
cede to that idea. " Then if you are asked if Mr. Ravesies 
is your friend, you will say he is not." " Certainly." " But 
surel}' you don't wish to have Mr. Ravesies hanged ? " " No, 
I do not, and I shall do nothing to cause him to be hanged ; 
but if he meets that fate by his own act, I can't help it. I 
will not allow him to accompany me under false pretences." 

At last it was agreed that Mr. Ravesies and his friends, Mr. 
Bartre and Mr. Lynes, being in no way employed by or con- 
nected with the Confederate Government, should have a place 
in the little schooner which we had picked out at the quayside 
and hired for the occasion, and go on the voyage with the plain 
understanding that they were to accept all the consequences of 
being citizens of Mobile. 

Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Ravesies, and a couple of gentlemeu 
dined with me in the evening. After dinner., Mr. Forsyth, 
who, as mayor of the town, is the Executive of the Vigilance 
Committee, took a copy of " Harper's Illustrated Paper," 
which is a very poor imitation of the " London Illustrated 
News," and called my attention to the announcement that Mr. 
Moses, their special artist, was travelling with me in the 
South, as well as to an engraving, which purported to be by 
Moses aforesaid. I could only say that I knew nothing of the 
young designer, except what he told me, and that he led me 
to believe he was furnishing sketches to the " London News." 
As he was in the hotel, though he did not live with me, I sent 
for him, and the young gentleman, who was very pale and 
agitated on being shown the advertisement and sketch, declared 
that he had renounced all connection with Harper, that he 
was sketching for the " Illustrated London News," and that 
the advertisement was contrary to fact, and utterly unknown 
to him ; and so he was let go forth, and retired uneasily. 
After dinner I went to the Bienville Club. " Rule No. 1 " is, 
" No gentleman shall be admitted in a state of intoxication." 
The club very social, very small, and very hospitable. 

Later paid my respects to Mrs. Forsyth, whom I found 
anxiously waiting for news of her young son, who had gone 
otf to join the Confederate Army. She told me that nearly 
all the ladies in Mobile are engaged in making cartridges, 
and in preparing lint or clothing for the army. Not the 
smallest fear is entertained for the swarming black population. 

May \A:th. — Down to our yacht, the Diana, which is to be 
ready this afternoon, and saw her cleared out a little — a 



THE NIGHT CRUISE. 199 

broad-beamed, flat-floored scbooncr, some fifty tons burden, 
with a ceiilre-board, badly calked, and dirty cnouf!;li — unfa- 
miliar with paint. The skipper was a long-legged, ungainly 
young fellow, with long hair and an inexpressive face, just re- 
lieved b}' the twinkle of a very " Yankee " eye ; but that was 
all of the hated creature about him, for a more earnest seceder 
I never heard. 

His crew consisted of three rough, mechanical sort of men 
and a negro cook. Having freighted the vessel with a small 
stock of stores, a British flag, kindly lent by the acting Con- 
sul, Mr. INIagee, and a tablecloth to serve as a flag of truce, 
our party, consisting of the gentlemen previously named, Mr. 
Ward, and the young artist, weighed from the quay of Mobile 
at five o'clock in the evening, with the manifest approbation 
of the small crowd who had assembled to see us off", the rumor 
having spread through the town that we were bound to see 
the great fight. The breeze was favorabhi and steady ; at 
nine o'clock, i*. M., the liglils of Fort Morgan were on our 
port beam, and for some time we were expecting to see the 
flash of a gun, as the skip])er confidently declared they would 
never allow us lo pass unchallenged. 

The darkness of the night might possibly have favored us, 
or the sentries were remiss ; at all events, we were soon creep- 
ing through the " Swash," which is a narrow channel over 
the bar, through which our skipper worked us by means of a 
sounding pole. The air was delightful, and blew directly off 
the low shore, in a line parallel to which we were moving. 
Wiien the evening vapors passed away, the stars shone out 
brilliantly, and though the wind was strong, and sent us at a 
good eight knots through the water, there was scarcely a rip- 
ple on the sea. Our course lay within a quarter of a mile of 
the shore, which looked like a white ribbon fringed with fire, 
from the ceaseless play of the phosphorescent surf. Above this 
belt of sand rose the black, jagged outlines of a pine forest, 
through which steal immense lagoons and marshy creeks. 

Driftwood and ti-ees strew the beach, and from Fort Mor- 
gan, for forty miles, to the entrance of Pensacola, not a human 
habitation disturbs the domain sacred to alligators, serj)ents, 
pelicans, and wild-fowl. Some of the lagoons, like the Per- 
dida, swell into inland seas, deep buried in pine woods, and 
known only to the wild creatures swarming along its brink 
and in its waters ; once, if report says true, frequented, how- 
ever, by the filibusters and by the pirates of the Spanish 
Main. 



200 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

If the mosquitoes were as numerous and as persecuting in 
those days as they are at i)resent, the most adventurous youth 
would have soon repented the infatuation which led him to 
join the brethren of the Main. The mosquito is a great 
enemy to romance, and our skipper tells us that there is no 
such place known in the world for them as this coast. 

As the Diana tlew along the grim shore, we lay listlessly 
on the deck admiring the excessive brightness of the stars, or 
watching the trailing fire of her wake. Now and then great 
4 iish flew off from the shallows, cleaving their path in flame ; 
"and one shining gleam came up from leeward like a watery 
comet, till its horrible outline was revealed close to us — a 
monster shark — which accompanied us with an easy play of 
the fin, distinctly visible in the wonderful phosphorescence, 
now shooting on ahead, now dropping astern, till suddenly it 
dashed off seaward Avith tremendous rapidity and strength 
on some errand of destruction, and vanished in the waste of 
waters. Despite the multitu<les of fish on the coast, the 
Spaniards who colonize this ill-named Florida must have had 
a trying life of it between the Indians, now hunted to death 
or exiled by rigorous Uncle Sam, the mosquitoes, and the 
numberless plagues which abound along these shores. 

Hour after hour passed watching the play of large fish and 
the surf on the beach; one by one the cigar-lights died out; 
and muflling ourselves up on deck, or creeping into the little 
cabin, the party slumbered. I was awoke by the Captain 
talking to one of his hands close to me, and on looking up saw 
that he was staring through a wonderful black tube, which he 
denominated his " tallowscope," at the shore. 

Looking in the direction, I observed the glare of a fire in 
the wood, which on examination through an opera-glass re- 
solved itself into a steady central light, with some smaller 
specks around it. " Wa'll," said the Captain, " I guess it is 

just some of them d d Yankees as is landed froui their 

tarnation boats, and is 'conoitering' for a road to Mobile." 
There was an old iron carronade on board, and it struck me 
as a curious exemplification of the recklessness of our Amer- 
ican cousins, when the skipper said, "Let us put a bag of 
bullets in the ould gun, and touch it off at them ; " which he 
no doubt would have done, seconded by one of our party, who 
drew his revolver to contribute to the broadside, but that I 
represented to them it was just as likely to be a party out from 
the camp at Pensacola, and that, anyhow, I strongly objected 



FORT M'RAE AND FORT PICKENS. 201 

to any belligerent act whilst I was on board. It was very 
probably, indeed, the watchlire of a Confederate patrol, for 
the geiUry of the country have formed themselves into a body 
of refjiilar cavalry for such service ; but the skipper declared 
that our chaps knew better than to be showing their lights in 
that way, when we were within ten miles of the entrance to 
Pensacola. 

The skipper lay-to, as he, very wisely, did not like to run 
into the centre of the United States squadron at night ; but 
just at the first glimpse of dawn the Diana resumed her 
(course, and bowled along merrily till, with the first rays of 
the sun, Fort M'Rae, Fort Pickens, and the masts of the 
squadron were visible ah(;ad, rising above the blended hori- 
zon of land and sea. We drew upon them rapidly, and soon 
could make out the rival flags — the Stars and Bars and Stars 
and Stripes — flouting defiance at each other. 

On the land side on our left is Fort M'Rae, and on the end 
of the sand-bank, called Santa Rosa Island, directly opposite, 
rises the outline of the much-talked-of Fort Pickens, which is 
not unlike Fort Paul on a small scale. Through the glass 
the blockading squadron is seen to consist of a sailing frigate, 
a sloop, and tliree steamers; and as we are scrutinizing them, 
a small schooner glides from under the shelter of the guard- 
ship, and makes towards us like a hawk on a sparrow. Hand 
()V(!r hand she comes, a great swaggering ensign at her peak, 
and a gun all ready at her bow ; and rounding up along-side 
us a boat manned by four men is lowered, an oificer jumps in, 
and is soon under our counter. The officer, a bluff, sailor-like 
looking fellow, in a uniform a little the worse for wear, and 
wearing his beard as officers of the United States navy gener- 
ally do, fixed his eye upon the skipper — who did not seem 
quite at his eawe, and had, indeed, confessed to us that he had 
been warned off by the Oriental, as the tender was named, 
only a short time before — and said, " Hallo, sir, I think I 
have seen you before: what schooner is this?" "The Diana 
of Mobile." " I thought so." Stei)ping on deck, he said, 
" Gentlemen, I am Mr. Brown, Master in the United States 
navy, in charge of the boarding schooner Oriental." We each 
gave our names; whereupon Mr. Brown says, "I have no 
doubt it will i)(j all right, be good enough to let me have your 
papers. And now, sir, make sail, and lie-to under the quarter 
of that steamer there, the Powhattan." The Captain did not 

look at all happy when the officer called his attention to the 

(J * 



202 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

indorsement on his papers ; nor did the Mobile party seem 
very comfortable when he reraai'ked, " I suppose, gentlemen, 
you are quite well aware there is a strict blockade of this 
port?" 

In half an hour the schooner lay under the guns of the 
Powhattan, which is a stumpy, thick-set, powerful steamer of 
the old paddle-wheel kind, something like the Leopai'd. We 
])roceeded along-side in the cutter's boat, and were ushered 
into the cabin, where the officer commanding. Lieutenant 
David Porter, received us, begged us to be seated, and then 
inquired info the object of our visit, which he communicated 
to the flag-ship by signal, in order to get instructions as to 
our disposal. Nothing could exceed his courtesy ; and I was 
most favorably impressed by himself, his officers, and crew. 
He took me over the ship, which is armed with ten-inch Dahl- 
grens and eleven-inch pivot guns, with rifled field-pieces and 
howitzers on the sponsons. Her boarding nettings were triced 
up, bows and weak portions padded with dead wood and old 
sails, and evei-ything ready for action. 

Lieutenant Porter has been in and out of the harbor ex- 
amining the enemy's works at all hours of the night, and he 
has marked off on the chart, as he showed me, the bearings 
of the various spots wdiere he can sweep or enfilade their 
works. The crew, all things considered, were very clean, 
and their personnel exceedingly fine. 

We were not the only prize that was made by the Oriental 
this morning. A ragged little schooner lay at the other side 
of the Powhattan, the master of which stood rubbing his 
knuckles into his eyes, and uttering dolorous expressions in 
bi"oken English and Italian, for he was a noble Roman of 
Civita Vecchia. Lieutenant Porter let me into the secret. 
These small traders at Mobile, pretending great zeal for the 
Confederate cause, load their vessels with fruit, vegetables, 
and things of which they know the squadron is much in want, 
as well as the garrison of the Confederate forts. They set 
out with the most valiant intention of running the blockade, 
and are duly captured by the squadron, the officers of which 
are only too glad to pay fair prices for the cargoes. They 
return to Mobile, keep their money in their pockets, and de- 
clare they have been plundered by the Yankees. If they 
get in, tliey demand still higlier prices from the Confederates, 
and lay claim to the most exalted patriotism. 

By signal from the flag-ship, Sabine, we were ordered to 



THE FLAG-SHIP. 203 

repair on board to see the senior oflBcer, Captain Adams ; and 
for the first time since I trod the deck of the old Leander in 
Bahiklava harbor, I stood on board a fifty-gun sailing frigate. 
Captain Adams, a gray-haired veteran of very gentle man- 
ners and great urbanity received us in his cabin, and listened 
to ray explanation of the cause of my visit with interest. 
About myself there was no difficulty ; but he very justly ob- 
pei'Vt'd he did not think it would be right to let the gentle- 
men from Mobile examine Fort Pickens, and then go among 
the Confiulcratc camps. I am bound to say these gentlemen 
scarcely seemed to desire or anticipate such a favor. 

INIajor Vogdes, an engineer officer from the fort, who hap- 
pened to be on board, volunteered to take a letter from me to 
Colonel Harvey Browne, requesting permission to visit it ; 
and I finally arranged with Captain Adams that the Diana 
was to be permitted to pass the blockade into Pensacola har- 
bor, and tlience to return to Mobile, my visit to Pickens de- 
pending on the pleasure of the Commandant of the place. 
" I fear, Mr. Russell," said Captain Adams, " in giving you 
this permission, I expose myself to misrepresentation and un- 
founded attacks. Gentlemen of the press in our country care 
little about private character, and are, I fear, rather unscrupu- 
lous in what they say ; but I rely upon your character that no 
improper use shall be made of this permission. You must 
hoist a flag of truce, as General Bragg, who commands over 
there, has sent me word he considers our blockade a declara- 
tion of war, and will fire upon any vessel which approaches him 
from our fleet. 

In the course of conversation, whilst treating me to such 
man-of-war luxuries as the friendly officer had at his disposal, 
he gave me an illustration of the miseries of this cruel con- 
flict — of the unspeakable desolation of homes, of the bitter- 
ness of feeling engendered in families. A Pennsylvanian by 
birth, he married long ago a lady of Louisiana, where he re- 
sided on his plantation till his ship was commissioned. He 
was absent on foreign service when the feud first began, and 
received orders at sea, on the South American station, to re- 
pair direct to blockade Pensacola. He has just heard that 
one of his sons is enlisted in the Confederate army, and that 
two others have joined the forces in Virginia ; and as he said 
sadly, " God knows, when I open my broadside, but that I 
may be killing my own children." But that was not all. 
One of the Mobile gentlemen brought him a letter from his 



204 aiT DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

daughter, in which she informs him that she has been elected 
vivandiere to a New Orleans regiment, with which she intends 
to push on to Washington, and get a lock of old Abe Lincoln's 
hair ; and the letter concluded with the charitable wish that 
her father might starve to death if he persisted in his wicked 
blockade. But not the less determined was the gallant old 
sailor to do his duty. 

Mr, Ward, one of my companions, had sailed in the Sabine 
in the Paraguay expedition, and I availed myself of his ac- 
quaintance with his old comrades to take a glance round the 
ship. AVherever they came from, four hundred more sailor- 
like, strong, handy young fellows could not be seen than the 
crew ; and the officers were as hospitable as their limited re- 
sources in whiskey grog, cheese, and junk allowed them to be. 

With thanks for his kindness and courtesy, I parted from 
Captain Adams, feeling moi'e than ever the terrible and ear- 
nest nature of the impending conflict. May the kindly good 
old man be shielded on the day of battle ! 

A ten-oared barge conveyed us to the Oriental, which, with 
flowing sheet, ran down to the Powhattan. There I saw Cap- 
tain Porter, and told him that Captain Adams had given me 
permission to visit the Confederate camp, and that I had writ- 
ten for leave to go on shore at Fort Pickens. An officer was 
in his cabin, to whom I was introduced as Captain Poore, of 
the Brooklyn. " You don't mean to say, Mr. Russell," said 
he, " that these editors of Southern newspapers who are with 
you have leave to go on shore ?" This vvas rather a fishing 
question. " I assure you. Captain Poore, that there is no 
editor of a Southern newspaper in my company." 

The boat which took us from the Powhattan to the Diana 
was in charge of a young officer related to Captain l*orter, 
who amused me by the spirit with which he bandied remarks 
about the war with the Mobile men, who had now recovered 
their equanimity, and were indulging in what is called chaff 
about the blockade. " Well," he said, " you were the first to 
begin it ; let us see whether you won't be the first to leave it 
off. I guess our Northern ice will pretty soon put out your 
Southern fire." 

When we came on board, the skipper heard our orders to 
up stick and away Avith an air of pity and incredulity ; nor 
was it till I had repeated it, he kicked up his crew from their 
sleep on deck, and with a " Wa'll, really, I never did see sich 
a thing ! " made sail towards the entrance to the harbor. 



THE FLAG OF TEUCE. 205 

As we got abreast of Fort Pickens, I ordered tablecloth 
No. 1 to be lioisted to the peak ; and through the glass I saw 
that our ajipearance attracted no ordinary attention from the 
garrison of Pickens close at hand on our right, and the more 
distant Confederates on Fort M'Rae and the sand-hills on our 
left. The latter work is weak and badly built, quite under the 
command of Pickens, but it is supported by the old Si)anish 
fort of Bariancas upon high ground further inland, and by nu- 
mei-ous batteries at the water-line and partly concealed amidst 
the woods which fiinge the shore as far as the navy yard of 
Warrington, near Pensacola. The wind was light, but the 
tide bore us onwards towards the Confederate works. Arms 
glanced in the blazing sun where regiments were engaged at 
drill, clouds of dust rose from the sandy roads, horsemen riding 
along the beach, groups of men in uniform, gave a martial ap- 
pearance to the |)lace in unison with the black muzzles of the 
guns which peeped from the white sand batteries from the en- 
trance of the harbor to the navy yard now close at hand. As 
at Sumter Major Anderson permitted the Carolinians to erect 
the batteries he might have so readily destroyed in the com- 
mencement, so the Federal otficers here have allowed General 
Bragg to work away at his leisure, mounting cannon after 
cannon, throwing up earthworks, and strengthening his batte- 
ries, till he has assumed so formidable an attitude, that I doubt 
very much whether the fort and the fleet combined can silence 
his fire. 

On the low shore close to us were numerous wooden houses 
and detached villas, surrounded by orange groves. At last the 
captain let go his anchor off the end of a wooden jetty, which 
was crowded with ammunition, shot, shell, casks of provisions, 
and commissariat stores. A small steamer was engaged in add- 
ing to the collection, and numerous light craft gave evidence 
that all trade had not ceased. Indeed, inside Santa Rosa Is- 
land, wiiich runs for forty-five miles from Pickens eastward 
parallel to the shore, there is a considerable coasting traffic 
cai-ried on for the benefit of the Confederates. 

The skipper went ashore with my letters to General Bragg, 
and speedily returned with an orderly, who brought permis- 
sion for the Diana to come along-side the wharf. The Mobile 
gentlemen were soon on shore, eager to seek their friends ; 
and in a few seconds Vne officer of the quartermaster-general's 
department on duty came on board to conduct me to the 
officers' quartei's, whilst waiting for my reply from General 
Braes. 



206 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

The navy yard is surrounded by a liigh wall, the a^'ites 
closely guarded by sentries ; the houses, gardens, workshops, 
factories, forges, slips, and building sheds are complete of 
their kind, and cover upwards of three hundred acres ; and 
with the ibrts which protect the entrance, cost the United 
States Government not less than six millions sterling. Inside 
these was the greatest activity and life, — Zouave, Ciiasseurs, 
and all kind of military eccentricities — were drilling, parad- 
ing, exercising, sitting in the shade, loading tumbrils, playing 
cards, or slee[)ing on the grass. Tents were ]>itched under the 
trees and on the little lawns and grass-covered quadrangles. 
Tlie houses, each numbered and marked with the name ol' the 
functionary to whose use it was assigned, were models of neat- 
ness, with gardens in front, filled with glorious tro])ical flowers. 
They were painted green and white, provided with porticoes, 
Venetian blinds, verandas, and colonnades, to protect the in- 
mates as much as possible from the blazing sun, which in the 
dog-da3's is worthy of Calcutta. The old Fulton is the only 
ship on the stocks. From the naval arsenal quantities of shot 
and shell are constantly pouring to the batteries. Piles of 
cannon-balls dot the grounds, but the only ordnance I saw 
were two old mortars placed as ornaments in the main avenue, 
one dated 1 770. 

The quartermaster conducted me through shady walks into 
one of the houses, then into a long room, and j)resented me 
en masse to a body of officers, mostly belonging to a Zouave 
regiment from New Orleans, who were seated at a very com- 
fortable dinner, with abundance of champagne, claret, beer, 
and ice. They were all young, full of life and spirits, except 
three or four graver and older men, who were Europeans. 
One, a Dane, had fought against tiie Prussians and Schleswig- 
llolsteincrs at Idstedt and Fricderichstadt ; another, an Ital- 
ian, seemed to have been engaged indifferently in fighting all 
over the South American continent ; a third, a Pole, had been 
at Comorn, and had participated in the revolutionary guerrilla 
of 1848. From these officers I learncnl that Mr. Jeffiirson 
Davis, his wife, Mr. Wigfall, and Mr. Mallory, Secretary of 
the Navy, had come down from Montgomery, and had been 
visiting the works all day. 

Every one here believes the attack so long threatened is to 
come otf at last and at once. 

After dinner an aide-de-camp from General Bragg entered 
with a request that I would accompany him to the command- 



GENERAL BRAGG ON SLAVERY. 207 

ing officer's quarters. As the sand outside the navy yard was 
deep, and rendered walking very disagreeable, the young 
officer stopped a cart, into which we got, and were proceeding 
on our way, when a tall, elderly man, in a blue frock-coat with 
a gold star on the shoulder, trousers with a gold stripe and 
gilt buttons rode past, followed by an orderly, who looked 
more like a dragoon than anything I have yet seen in the 
States. " There's Genc^ral Bragg," quoth the aide, and I was 
didy presented to the General, who reined up by the wagon. 
He sent his orderly off at once for a light cart drawn by a 
pair of nudes, in which I completed my journcjy, and was 
safely decarted at the door of a substantial house surrounded 
by ti-ees of lini(% oak, and sycamore. 

Led horses and orderlies thronged the front of the portico, 
and gave it the usual head-quarters-like aspect. General Bragg 
received me at the steps, and took me to his private room, 
whei-e we remained for a long time in conversation. He had 
retired from the United States army after the Mexican war — 
in which, by the way, he [)layed a distinguished part, his name 
being generally coupled with the phrase " a little more grape. 
Captain Bragg," used in one of the hottest encounters of that 
campaign — to his [)lantation in Louisiana; but suddenly the 
Northern States declared their intention of using force to free 
and sovereign States, which were exercising their constitution- 
al rights to secede from the Federal Union. 

Neither he nor liis family were responsilde for the system 
of slavery. His ancestors found it established by law and 
flourishing, and had left him property, consisting of slaves, 
which was granted to him by the laws and constitution of the 
United States. Slaves were necessary for the actual cultiva-' 
tion of the soil in the South ; Europeans and Yankees who 
settled there speedily became convinced of that ; and if a 
Northern population were settled in Louisiana to-morrow, they 
would discover that they must till the land by the labor of the 
black race, and that the only mode of making the black race 
work, was to hold them in a condition of involuntary s(U'vitude. 
" Only the other day. Colonel Harvey Browne, at Pickens, 
over the way, carried off a number of negroes from Tortugas, 
and put them to work at Santa Rosa. Why ? Because his 
white soldiers were not able for it. No. The North was 
bent on subjugating the South, and as long as he had a drop 
of blood in his body, he would resist such an infamous at- 
tempt." 



208 MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Before supper General Bragg opened his maps, and pointed 
out to me in detail the position of" all his works, the line of fire 
of each gun, and the particular ohject to be expected from its 
effects. " I know every inch of Pickens," he said, " for I hap- 
pened to be stationed there as soon as I left "West Point, and I 
don't tliiiik there is a stone in it that I am not as well ac- 
quainted with as Harvey Browne." 

His staff, consisting of four intelligent young men, two of 
them lately belonging to the United States army, supped with 
us, and after a very agreeable evening, horses were ordered 
round to the door, and I returned to the navy yard attended 
by the General's orderly, and provided with a pass and coun- 
tersign. As a mark of complete confidence, General Bragg 
told me, for my private ear, that he had no present intention 
whatever of opening fire, and that his batteries were far from 
being in a state, either as regards armament or ammunition, 
which would justify him in meeting the fire of the forts and 
the ships. 

And so we bade good-by. " To-morrow," said the General, 
" I will send down one of my best horses and Mr. Ellis, my 
aide-de-camp, to take you over all the works and batteries." 
As I rode home with my honest orderly beside instead of be- 
hind me, for he was of a conversational turn, I was much per- 
plexed in my mind, endeavoring to determine which was right 
and which was wrong in this quarrel, and at last, as at Mont- 
gomery, I was forced to ask myself if right and wrong were 
geographical expressions depending for extension or limitation 
on certain conditions of climate and lines of latitude and lon- 
gitude. Here was the General's orderly beside me, an intelli- 
gent middle-aged man, who had come to do battle with as 
much sincerity — ay, and religious confidence — as ever act- 
uated old John Brown or any New England puritan to make 
war against slavery. " I have left my old woman and the 
children to the care of the niggers ; I have turned up all my 
cotton land and planted it with corn, and 1 don't intend to go 
back alive till I've seen the back of the last Yankee in our 
Southern States." " And are wife and children alone with the 
negroes?" " Yes, sir. There's only one white man on the 
plantation, an overseer sort of chap." " Ai-e not you afraid of 
the slaves rising ? " " They'i-e ignorant poor creatures, to be 
sure, but as yet they're faithful. Any way, I put my trust in 
God, and I know he'll watch over the house while I'm away 
fighting for this good cause ! " This man came from Missis- 



ON BOARD THE SCHOONER. 209 

sippi, and had twenty-five slaves, which represented a money 
value of at least £5000. He was beyond the age of enthusi- 
asm, and was actuated, no doubt, by strong principles, to him 
unquestionable and sacred. 

My pass and countersign, which were only once demanded, 
took me through the sentries, and I got on board the schooner 
shortly before midnight, and found nearly all the party on' 
deck, enchanted with their reception. More than once we 
were awoke by the vigilant sentries, who would not let what 
Americans call " the balance " of our frieuds on boaz'd till 
they had seen my authority to receive them. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Bitters before breakfost — An old Crimean acquaintance — Earthworks 
and batteries — Estimate of cannons — Magazines — Hospitality — 
English and American introductions and leave-takings — Fort 
Pickens; its interior — Return toward Mobile — Pursued by a 
strange sail — llunning the blockade — Landing at Mobile. 

May 1 (Sth. — The reveille of the Zouaves, note for note the 
same as that which, in the Crimea, so often vv^oke up poor 
fellows who slept the long sleep ere nightfall, roused us this 
morning early, and then the clang of trumpets and the roll of 
drums beating French calls summoned the volunteers to early 
parade. As there was a heavy dew, and many winged things 
about last night, I turned in to my berth below, where four 
human beings were supposed to lie in layers, like mummies 
beneath a pyramid, and there, after contention with cock- 
I'oaches, sank to rest. No wonder I was rather puzzled to know 
where I was now ; for in addition to the music and the famil- 
iar sounds outside, I was somewhat perturbed in my mental 
calculations by bringing my head sharply in contact with a 
beam of the deck which had the best of it ; but, at last, 
facts accomplished themselves and got into place, much aided 
by the appearance of the negro cook with a cup of coffee in 
his hand, who asked, " Mosieu ! Ca[)itaine vant to ax vedder 
you take some bitter, sar ! Lisbon bitter, sar." I saw the 
captain on deck busily engaged in the maiuifacture of a liquid 
which I was adjured by all the party on deck to take, if I 
wished to make a Redan or a Malakoff of my stomach, and 
accordingly I swallowed a petit verve of a very strong, and 
intensely bitter preparation of brandy and tonic roots, sweet- 
ened with sugar, for which Mobile is famous. 

The noise of our arrival had gone abroad ; haply the 
report of the good things with which the men of Mobile had 
laden the craft, for a few officers came aboard even at that 
early hour, and we asked two who were known to our friends 
to stay for breakfast. That meal, to which the negro cook 
applied his whole mind and all the galley, consisted of an 



A FRIEND FROM THE CRIMEA. 211 

Ugly looking but well-flavored fish from the waters outside us, 
fried ham and onions, biscuit, coffee, iced water and Bordeaux, 
served with charming simplicity, and no way calculated to 
move the ire of Horace by a display of Persic apparatus. 

A more greasy, oniony meal was never better enjoyed. 
One of our guests was a jolly Yorkshire farmer-looking man, 
up to about 16 stone weight, with any hounds, dressed in a 
tunic of green baize or frieze, with scarlet worsted braid 
down the front, gold lace on the cuffs and collar, and a felt 
wide-awake, with a bunch of feathers in it. He wijjcd the 
sweat off his brow, and swore that he would never give in, 
and that the whole of the company of riflemen whom he 
commanded, if not as heavy, were quite as patriotic. He was 
evidently a kindly affectionate man, without a trace of malice 
in his composition, but his sentiments were quite ferocious 
when he came to speak of the Yankees. He was a large 
slave-owner, and therefore a man of fortune, and he spoke 
with all the fervor of a capitalist menaced by a set of Red 
Republicans. 

His companion, who wore a plain blue uniform, spoke sen- 
sibly about a matter with which sense has rarely any thing to 
do — namely uniform. Many of the United States volunteers 
adopt the same gray colors so much in vogue among the CoK- 
federates. The officers of both armies wear similar distin 
guishing marks of rank, and he was quite right in supposing 
that in night marches, or in serious actions on a large scale, 
much confusion and loss would be caused by men of the same 
army firing on each otlier, or mistaking enemies for friends. 

Whilst we were talking, large shoals of mullet and other 
fish were flying before tlie porpoises, red fish, and other ene- 
mies, in the tide-way astern of the schooner. Once, as a 
large white fish came leaping up to the surfiice, a gleam of 
something still whiter shot through the waves, and a boiling 
whirl, tinged with crimson, which gradually melted off in the 
tide, marked where the fish had been. 

" There's a ground sheark as has got his breakfast," quoth 
the Skipper. " There's quite a many of them about here." 
Now and then a turtle showed his head, exciting desiderium 
tarn cari captis, above the envied flood which he honored with 
his presence. 

Far away toward Pensacola, floated three British ensigns, 
from as many merchantiuen, which as yet had fifteen days to 
clear out from the blockaded port. Fort Pickens had hoisted 



212 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the stars and stripes to the wind, and Fort M'Rae, as if to 
irritate its neighbor, displayed a flag almost identical, but for 
the " lone stai'," which the glass detected instead of the ordi- 
nary galaxy — the star of Florida. 

Lieutenant Ellis, General Bragg's aide-de-camp, came on 
board at an early hour in order to take me round the works, 
and I was soon on the back of the General's charger, safely 
ensconced between the raised pummel and cantle of a great 
brass-bound saddle, with emblazoned saddle-cloth and mighty 
stirrups of brass, fit for the fattest marshal that ever led an 
army of France to victory ; but General Bragg is longer in 
the leg than the Duke of Malakoff or Marshal Canrobert, 
and all my efforts to touch with my toe the wonderful sup- 
ports which, in consonance with the American idea, dangled 
far beneath, were ineffectual. 

As our road lay by head-quarters, the aide-de-camp took 
me into the court and called out " Orderly ; " and at the sum- 
mons a smart soldier-like young fellow came to the front, took 
me three holes up, and as I was riding away touched his cap 
and said, " I beg your pardon, sir, but I often saw you in the 
Crimea." He had been in the 11th Hussars, ami on the day 
of Balaklava he was following close to Lord Cardigan and 
Captain Nolan, when his horse was killed by a round shot. 
As he was endeavoring to escape on foot the Cossacks took 
him prisoner, and he remained for eleven months in captivity 
in Russia, till he was exchanged at Odessa, toward the close 
of the war ; then, being one of two sergeants who were per- 
mitted to get their discharge, he left the service. " But here 
you are again," said I, " soldiering once more, and merely 
acting as an orderly ! " " Well, that's true enough, but I 
came over here, thinking to better myself as some of our 
fellows did, and then the war broke out, and I entered one of 
^what they called their cavalry regiments — Lord bless you, 
sir, it would just break your heart to see them — and here I am 
now, and the general has made me an orderly. He is a kind 
man, sir, and the pay is goed, but they are not like the old 
lot ; I do not know what my lord would think of them." The 
man's name was Montague, and he told me his father lived 
" at a place called Windsor," twenty-one miles from London. 
Lieutenant Ellis said he was a very clean, smart, well-con- 
ducted soldier. 

From head-quarters we started on our little tour of inspec- 
tion of the batteries. Certainly, any thing more calculated 



FORTS AROUND FORT PICKENS. 213 

to shake confiilence in American journalism could not be 
seen ; for I had been led to believe that the works were of 
the most formidable description, mounting hundreds of guns. 
Where hundreds was written, tens would have been nearer 
the truth. 

I visited ten out of the thirteen batteries which General 
Bragg has erected against Fort Pickens. I saw but five 
heavy siege guns in the whole of the works among the fifty or 
fifty-five pieces with which they were armed. There may 
be about eighty altogether on the lines, which describe an 
arc of 135 degrees for about three miles round Pickens, at 
an average distance of a mile and one third. I was rather 
interested with Fort Barrancas, built by the Spaniards long 
ago — an old work on the old plan, weakly armed, but pos- 
sessing a tolerable command from the face of fire. 

In all the batteries there were covered galleries in the rear, 
comiected with the magazines, and called " rat-holes," intend- 
ed by the constructoi's as a refuge for the men whenever a 
shell from Pickens dropped in. The rush to the rat-hole does' 
not impress one as being very conducive to a sustained and 
heavy fire, or at all likely to improve the morale of the gun- 
ners. The working parties, as they were called — volunteers 
from Mississippi and Alabama, great long-bearded fellows in 
flannel shirts and slouched hats, uniformless in all save bright- 
ly burnished arms and resolute purpose — were lying about 
among the works, or contributing languidly to their comple- 
tion. 

Considerable improvements were in the course of execu- 
tion ; but the officers were not always agreed as to the work 
to be done. Captain A., at the wheelbarrows : " Now then, 
you men, wheel up these sand-bags, and range them just at 
this corner." Major B. : " My good Captain A., what do 
you w^ant the bags there for ? Did I not tell you, these mer- 
lons were not to be finished till we had completed the parapet 
on the front ? " Captain A. : " Well, Major, so you did, and 
your order made me think you knew darned little about your 
business ; and so I am going to do a little engineering of my 
own." 

Altogether, I was quite satisfied General Bragg was per- 
fectly correct in refusing to open his fire on Fort Pickens and 
on the fleet, which ought certainly to have knocked his works 
about his ears, in spite of his advantages of position, and of 
some well-placed mortar batteries among the brushwood, at 



214 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

distances from Pickens of 2500 and 2800 yards. The maija- 
zines of the batteries I visited did not contain ammunition for 
more than one day's ordinary firing. The shot were badly 
cast, with projecting fianges from the mould, which would be 
very injurious to soft metal guns in firing. As to men. as in 
guns, the Southern papers liad lied consumedly. I could not 
say how many w^ere in Pensacola itself, for I did not visit the 
camp : at the outside guess of the numbers there was 2000. 
I saw, however, all the camps here, and I doubt exceedingly 
if General Bragg — who at this time is represented to have 
any number from 30,000 to 50,000 men under his command 
— has 8000 troojis to support his batteries, or 10,000, includ- 
ing Pensacola, all told. 

If hospitality consists in the most liberal participation of 
all the owner has with his visitors, here, indeed, Philemon 
has his type in every tent. As we rode along through every 
battery, by every officer's quarters some great Mississippian 
or Alabamian came forward with " Captain Ellis, I am glad 
to see you." '• Colonel," to me, " won't you get down and 
have a drink ? " ]Mr. Ellis duly introduces me. The Colonel 
with ef!iision grasps my hand and says, as if he had just gained 
the particular object of his existence, " Sir, I am very glad 
indeed to know you. I hope you have been pretty well since 
you have been in our country, sir. Here, Pompey, take the 
colonel's horse. Step in, sir, and have a drink." Then comes 
out the great big whiskey bottle, and an immense amount of 
adhesion to the first law of nature is required to get you off 
with less than half-a-pint of " liourbon ; " but the most trying 
thing to a stranger is the fact that when he is going away, the 
ofiiccr, who has been so delighted to see him, does not seem 
to care a farthing for his guest or his health. 

The truth is, these introductions are ceremonial observances, 
and compliances with the universal curiosity of Americans to 
know people they meet. The P^nglishman bows frigidly to 
his acquaintance on the first introduction, and if he likes him 
shakes hands with him on leaving — a much more sensible 
and justifiable proceeding. The American's warmth at the 
first interview must be artificial, and the indifference at part- 
ing is ill-bred and in bad taste. I had already observed this 
on many occasions, especially at Montgomery, where I noticed 
it to Colonel Wigfall, but the custom is not incompatible with 
the most profuse hospitality, nor with the desire to render 
service. 



VISIT TO FORT PICKENS. 215 

On my return to head-quarters T found General Bragg in 
bis room, engaged in writing an otlicial letter in reply to my 
request to be permitted to visit Fort Pickens, in whicb be 
gave me full permission to do as I pleased. Not only this, 
but be bad prepared a number of letters of introduction to tlie 
military autborities, and to bis personal friends at New 
Orleans, requesting tbem to give me every facility and 
friendly assistance in tbeir power. He asked me my opinion 
about tbe batteries and tbeir armament, wbicT\ I freely gave 
him quantum valent. "Well," he said, "I think your conclu- 
sions are pretty just ; but, nevertheless, some fine day I shall 
be forced to try the mettle of our friends on tbe opposite 
side." All I could say was, "May God defend the right." 
"A good saying, to which I say, Amen. And drink with you 
to it." 

There Avas a room outside, full of generals and colonels, 
to whom I was duly introduced, but tbe time for departure 
bad come, and I bade good-by to the general and rode down 
to the Avbarf I bad always beard, during my brief sojourn 
in the North, that the Soutliern people Avere exceedingly 
illiterate and ignorant. It may be so, but I am bound to say 
that I observed a large proportion of the soldiers, on their 
way to the navy yard, engaged in reading newspapers, though 
they did not neglect tbe various drinking bars and ex- 
changes, Avhicb Avere only too numerous in the vicinity of tbe 
camps. 

The schooner Avas all ready for sea, but the Mobile gentle* 
man had gone oft' to Pensacola, and as I did not desire to 
invite them to visit Fort Pickens — Avbere, indeed, they Avould 
have most likely met Avith a refusal — I resolved to sail Avith- 
out tbem and to return to the navy yard in the evening, in 
order to take them back on our homeAvard voyage. " Noav 
then, captain, cast loose ; Ave are going to Fox*t Picken%." The 
worthy seaman had by this time become utterly at sea, and 
did not appear to knoAv whether he belonged to the Confed- 
erate States, Abraham Lincoln, or the British navy. Bui 
this order roused him a little, and looking at me Avith all his 
eyes, he exclaimed, " Why, you don't mean to say you are 
going to make me bring the Diana alongside that darned 
Yankee Fort ! " Our table-cloth, somewhat maculated Avith 
gravy, Avas hoisted once more to the peak, and, after some 
formalities betAveen the guardians of the jetty and ourselves, 
the schooner canted round in tbe tideAvay, and Avith a tine 
light breeze ran down toward the stars and stripes. 



216 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Wliat magical power there is in the colors of a piece of 
bunting ! Mj companions, I dare say, felt as proud of their 
flag as if their ancestors had fought under it at Acre or Jeru- 
salem. And yet how fictitious its influence ! Death, and dis- 
honor worse than death, to desert it one day ! Patriotism and 
glory to leave it in the dust, and fight under its rival, the next! 
How indignant would George Washington have been, if the 
Frencliman at Fort du Quesne had asked him to abandon the 
old rag which Braddock held aloft in the wilderness, and to 
serve under the very Jieur-de-lys which the same great George 
hailed with so much joy but a few years afterwards, when it 
was advanced to the front at Yorktown, to win one of its tew 
victories over the Lions and the Harp. And in this Confed- 
erate flag there is a meaning which cannot die — it marks the 
birthplace of a new nationality, and its place must know it 
forever. Even the flag of a rebellion leaves indelible colors 
in the political atmosphere. The hopes that sustained it 
may vanish in the gloom of night, but the national faith still 
believes that its sun will rise on some glorious morrow. Hard 
must it be for this race, so arrogant, so great, to see stripe and 
star torn from the fair standard with which they would fain 
have shadowed all the kingdoms of the world ; but their great 
continent is large enough for many nations. 

"And now," said the skipper, " I think we'd best lie to — 
them cussed Yankees on the beach is shouting to us." And 
so they were. A sentry on the end of a wooden jetty sung 
out, " Hallo you there ! Stand off or I'll tire," and " drew 
a bead-line on us." At the same time the skipper hailed, 
" Please to send a boat off" to go ashore." " No, sir ! Come in 
your own boat ! " cried the officer of the guard. Our own 
boat ! A very skiff' of Charon ! Leaky, rotten, lop-sided. We 
were a hundred yards from the beacli, and it was to be hoped 
that wirii all its burden, it could not go down in such a short 
row. As I stepped in, however, followed by my two com- 
panions, the water flew in as if forced by a pump, and when 
the sailors came after us the skipper said, through a mouthful 
of juice, " Deevid ! pull your hardest, for there an't a more 
terrible place for shearks along the whole coast." Deevid and 
his friend pulled like men, and our hopes rose with the water 
in the boat and the decreasing distance to shore. They 
worked like Doggett's badgers, and in five minutes we were 
out of " sheark " depth and alongside the jetty, where Major 
Vogdes, Mr. Brown, of the Oriental, and an officer, introduced 



FORT PICKENS. 217 

as Captain Barry of the United States artillery, were waiting 
to receive us. Major Vogdes said that Colonel Brown would 
most gladly permit me to go over the fort, but that he could 
not receive any of the other gentlemen of the party ; they 
were permitted to wander about at their discretion. Some 
fi'iends whom they picked up amongst the officers took them 
on a ride along tlie island, wliich is merely a sand-bank cov- 
ered with coarse vegetation, a few trees, and pools of brack- 
ish water. 

If I were selecting a summer habitation I should certainly 
not choose Fort Pickens. It is, like all other American works 
I have seen, strong on the sea faces and weak toward the 
land. The outer gate was closed, but at a talismanic knock 
from Caj^tain Barry, the wicket was thrown open by the 
guard, and we passed through a vaulted gallery into the 
parade ground, which was full of men engaged in strengthen- 
ing the place, and digging deep pits in the centre as shell traps. 
The men were United States regulars, not comparable in phy- 
sique to the Southern volunteers, but infinitely superior in 
cleanliness and soldierly smartness. The officer on duty led 
me to one of the angles of the fort and turned in to a covered 
way, which had been ingeniously contrived by tilting up gun 
platforms and beams of wood at an angle against the wall, and 
piling earth and sand banks against them for several feet in 
thickness. The casemates, which otherwise would have been 
exposed to a plunging fii-e in the rear, were thus effijctually 
protected. 

Emerging from this dark passage I entered one of the 
bomb-proofs, fitted up as a bed-room, and thence proceeded 
to the casemate, in which Colonel Harvey Browne has his 
head-quarters. After some conversation, he took me out upon 
the parapet and went all over the defences. 

Fort Pickens is an oblique, and somewhat narrow parallel- 
ogram, with one obtuse angle facing the sea and the other 
toward the land. The bastion at the acute angle toward Bar- 
rancas is the weakest part of the work, and men were engaged 
in throwing up an extempore glacis to cover the wall and the 
casemates from fire. The guns were of what is considered 
small calibre in these days, 32 and 42 pounders, with four or 
five heavy columbiads. An immense amount of work has 
been done within the last three weeks, but as yet the prepara- 
tions are by no means complete. Fi-om the walls, which are 
made of a hard baked brick, nine feet in thickness, there is a 
10 



218 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

good view of the enemy's position. There is a broad ditch 
round the work, now dry, and probably not intended for water. 
The cuvette has lately been cleared out, and in proof of the 
agreeable nature of the locality, the officers told me that sixty 
very fine rattle-snakes were killed by the woi'kmen during the 
operation. 

As I was looking at the works from the wall. Captain Vog- 
des made a sly remark now and then, blinking his eyes and 
looking closely at my face to see if he could extract any infor- 
mation. "There are the quarters of your friend General 
Bi-agg ; he pretends, we hear, that it is an hospital, but we 
will soon have him out when we open fire." " Oh, indeed." 
" That's their best battery beside the light-house ; we can't 
Avell make out whether there are ten, eleven, or twelve guns 
in it." Then Captain Vogdes became quite meditative, and 
thought aloud, " Well, I'm sui-e. Colonel, they've got a strong 
entrenched camp in that wood behind their morter batteries. 
I'm quite sure of it — we must look to that with our long 
range guns." What the engineer saw, must have been certain 
absurd little furrows in the sand, which the Confederates have 
thrown up about three feet in front of their tents, but whether 
to carry oiF or to hold rain water, or as cover for rattle-snakes, 
the best judge caimot determine. 

The Confederates have been greatly delighted with the idea 
that Pickens will be almost untenable during the summer for 
the United States troops, on account of the heat and mosquitos, 
not to speak of yellow fever ; but in fact they are far better 
off than the troops on shore — the casemates are exceedingly 
well ventilated, light and airy. Mosquitos, yellow fever, 
and dysentery, will make no distinction between Trojan and 
Tyrian. On the whole, I should prefer being inside, to being 
outside Pickens, in case of a bombardment ; and there can be 
no doubt the entire destruction of the navy yard and sta- 
tion by the Federals can be accomplished whenever they please. 
Colonel lirowne pointed out the tall chinmcy at Warrenton 
smoking away, and said, " There, sii', is the whole reason of 
Bragg's forbearance, as it is called. Do you see ? — they are 
casting shot and shell there as fast as they can. They know 
well if they opened a gun on us I could lay that yard and 
all their works there in ruin ; " and Colonel Harvey Browne 
seems quite the man for the work — a resolute, energetic 
veteran, animated by the utmost dislike to secession and its 
leaders, and full of what are called " Union Principles," 



OFF MOBILE. 219 

which are rapidly becoming the mere expression of a desire 
to destroy hfe, liberty, pro{)erty, any thing in fact which op- 
poses Itself to the consolidation of the Federal g-overnment. 

Probably no person has ever been permitted to visit two 
hostile camps within sight of each other save myself. I was 
neither spy, herald, nor ambassador ; and both sides trusted 
to me lully on the understanding that I would not make use 
ot any information here, but that it might be communicated 
to the world at the other side of the Atlantic. 

Apropos of this. Colonel Browne told me an amusing story 
which shows that 'cuteness is not altogether confined to the 
lankees. Some days ago a gentleman was found wander- 
ing about the island, who stated he was a correspondent of 
a iSlew lork paper. Colonel Browne was not satisfied with 
the account he gave of himself, and sent him on board one 
of the ships of the fleet, to be confined as a prisoner. Soon 
afterwards a flag of truce came over from the Confederates 
airrymg a letter from General Bragg, requesting Colonel 
Browne to give up the prisoner, as he had escaped to the 
island after committing a felony, and enclosing a warrant 
signed by a justice of the peace for his arrest. Colonel 
Browne laughed at the rme, and keeps his prisoner. 

As It was approaching evening and I Jiad seen every 

thing in the fort, the hospital, casemates, magazines, bake- 

louses, tasted the rations, and drank the whiskey, I set out 

tor tlie schooner, accompanied by Colonel Browne and Cap- 

ain Barry and other officers, and picking up my friends at 

tne bakehouse outside. 

Having bidden our acquaintances good-by, we got on board 
tlie Diana, which steered toward the Warrington navy yard 
to take the rest of the party on board. The sentries along 
the beach and on the batteries grounded arms, and stared 
with surprise as the Diana, with her tablecloth flying, crossed 
over from Fort Pickens, and ran slowly along the Confeder- 
ate works. Whilst we were spying fbr the Mobile gentlemen, 
the mate took it into his head to take up the Confederate 
bunting, and wave it over the quarter. " Hollo, what's that 
you re doing.?" "It's only a signal to the gentlemen on 
sliore. " Wave some other fiag, if you please, when we are 
in these waters, with a flag of truce flying." 

After standing oflT and on for some time, the Mobilians at 
last boarded us in a boftt. They were full of excitement, 
quite eager to stay and see the bombardment which must 



220 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

come off in twenty-four hours. Before we left Mobile harbor 
I had made a bet for a small sum that neither side would 
attack within the next few days ; but now I could not even 
shake my head one way or the other, and it required the 
utmost self-possession and artifice of which I was master to 
evade the acute inquiries and suggestions of my good friends. 
I was determined to go — they were equally bent upon re- 
maining ; and so we parted after a short but very pleasant 
cruise together. 

We had arranged with Mr. Brown that we would look out 
for him on leaving the harbor, and a bottle of wine was put 
in the remnants of our ice to drink farewell; but it was almost 
dark as the Diana shot out seawards between Pickens and 
M'Rae ; and for some anxious minutes we were doubtful 
which would be the first to take a shot at us. Our tablecloth 
still fluttered ; but the color might be invisible. A lantern was 
hoisted astern by my order as soon as the schooner was clear of 
the forts ; and with a cool sea-breeze we glided out into the 
night, the black form of the Powhattan being just visible, the 
rest of the squadron lost in the darkness. We strained our 
eyes for the Oriental, but in vain ; and it occurred to us that 
it would scarcely be a very safe proceeding to stand fi'om the 
Confederate forts down toward the guard-ship, unless under 
the convoy of the Oriental. It seemed quite certain she 
must be cruising some way to the westward, waiting for us. 

The wind was from the north, on the best point for our re- 
turn ; and the Diana, heeling over in the smooth water, pro- 
ceeded on her way towai'd Mobile, running so close to the 
shore that I could shy a biscuit on the sand. She seemed to 
breathe the wind through her sails, and flew with a crest of 
flame at her bow, and a bubbling wake of meteor-like streams 
flowing astern, as though liquid metal were flowing from a 
furnace. 

The night was exceedingly lovely, but after the heat of the 
day the horizon was somewhat hazy. " No sign of the Ori- 
ental on our lee-bow ? " " Nothing at all in sight, sir, ahead 
or astern." Sharks and large fish ran off from the shallows 
as we passed, and rushed out seawards in runs of brilliant light. 
The Perdida was left far astern. 

On sped the Diana, but no Oriental came in view. I felt 
exceedingly tired, heated, and fagged ; had been up early, 
ridden in a broiling sun, gone through batteries, examined 
forts, sailed backwards and forwards, so I was glad to tui'n in 



AN EXCITING CHASE. 221 

out of the night dew, and, leaving injunctions to the captain 
to keep a bright look out for the Federal boarding schooner, 
I went to sleep without the smallest notion that I had seen 
my last of Mr. Brown. 

I had been two or three hours asleep when I was awoke by 
the negro cook, who was leaning over the berth, and, with 
teeth chattering, said, " Monsieur ! nous sommes perdus ! un 
batiment de guerre nous poursuit — il va tirer bientot. Nous 
serons coule ! Oh, Mon Dieu ! Oh, Mon Dieu ! " I started 
up and popped my head through the hatchway. The skipper 
himself was at the helm, glancing from the compass to the 
quivering reef points of the mainsail. " What's the matter, 
captain ? " " Waal, sir," said the captain, speaking very slowly, 
" There has been a something a running after us for nigh the 
last two hours, but he ain't a gaining on us. I don't think 
he'll kitch us up nohow this time ; if the wind holds this pint 
a leetle, Diana will beat him." 

The confidence of coasting captains in their own craft is an 
hallucination which no risk or danger will ever prevent them 
from cherishing most tendei'ly. There's not a skipper fi-om 
Hartlepool to Whitstable who does not believe his Maryanne 
Smith or the Two Grandmothei-s is able, " on certain pints," 
to bump her fat bows, and drag her coal-scuttle shaped stern 
faster through the sea than any clipper afloat. I was once 
told by the captain of a Margate Billy Boy he believed he 
could run to windward of any frigate in Her Majesty's service. 

" But, good heavens, man, it may be the Oriental — no 
doubt it is Mr. Brown who is looking after us." " Ah ! Waal, 
may be. Whoever it is, he ci'eeped quite close up on me in 
the dark. It give me quite a sterk when I seen him. ' May 
be,' says I, 'he is a privateering — pirating — chap.' So I 
runs in shore as close as I could ; gets my centre board in, and, 
says I, ' I'll see what you're made of, my boy.' And so we 
goes on. He ain't a-gaining on us, I can tell you." 

I looked through the glass, and could just make out, half or 
three quarters of a mile astern, and to leeward, a vessel look- 
ing quite black, which seemed to be standing on in pursuit of 
us. The shore was so close, we could almost have leaped 
into the surf, for when the centre board was up the Diana 
did not draw much more than four feet of water. The skip- 
per held grimly on. " You had better shake your wind, and 
see who it is ; it may be Mr. Brown." " No, sir, Mr. Brown 
or no, I can't help carrying on now ; there's a bank runs all 



222 MY DIARY XOIITII AND SOUTH. 

along outsirle of us, and if I don't hold my course I'll be on it 
in one minute." I confess I was rather annoyed, but the cap- 
tain was master of the situation. He said, that if it had been 
the Oriental she would have fired a blank gun to bring us to 
as soon as she saw us. To my inquiries why he did not 
awaken me when she was first made out, he innocently re- 
plied, " You was in such a beautiful sleep, I thought it would 
be regular cruelty to disturb you." 

By creeping close in shore the Diana was enabled to keep 
to windward of the stranger, who was seen once or twice to 
bump or strike, for her sails shivered. " There, she's struck 
again." '' She's off once more," and the chase is renewed. 
Every moment I exj^ected to have my eyes blinded by the 
flash of lier bow gun, but for some reason or another, possibly 
because she did not wish to check her way, the Oriental — 
privateer, or whatever it was — saved her powder. 

A stern chase is a long chase. It is two o'clock in the 
morning — the skipper grinned with delight. " I'll lead him 
into a pretty mess if he follows me through the ' Swash,' 
whoever he is." We were but ten miles from Fort Morgan. 
Nearer and nearer to the shore creeps the Diana. 

" Take a cast of the lead, John." " Nine feet." " Good. 
Again." " Seven feet." " Again." " Five feet." " Charlie, 
bring the lantern." We were now in the " Swash," with a 
boiling tideway. 

Just at the moment that the negro uncovered the lantern 
out it went, a fact which elicited the most remarkable amount 
of imprecations ear ever heard. The captain went dancing 
mad in intervals of deadly calmness, and gave his com- 
mands to the crew, and strange oaths to the cook alternately, 
as the mate sung out, " Five feet and a half." " About she 
goes ! Confound you, you black scoundrel, I'll teach you," 
&c., &c. " Six feet ! Eight feet and a half!" " About she 
comes again." " Five feet ! Four feet and a half." (Oh, 
Lord ! Six inches under our keel !) And so Ave went, with 
a measurement between us and death of inches, not by any 
means agreeable, in which the captain showed remarkable 
coolness and skill in the management of his craft, combined 
with a most unseemly animosity toward his unfortunate cook. 

It was very little short of a mii^acle that we got past the 
" Elbow," as the most narrow part of the channel is called, 
for it was just at the critical moment the binnacle light was 
extinguished, and went out with a splutter, and there we 



t 



THE DIANA EIJNS THE BLOCKADE. 223 

were left., in darkness in a channel not one hundred yards 
wide and only six feet deep. The centre board also got jam- 
med once or twice when it was most important to lie as close 
to the wind as possible ; but at last the captain shouted out, 
" It's all right, we're in deep water," and calling the mate 
to the liehn proceeded to relieve his mind by chasing Charlie 
into a corner and belaboring him with a dead shark or dog- 
fish about four feet long, which he picked up from the deck 
as the handiest weapon he could find. For the whole morn- 
ing, henceforth, the captain found great comfort in making 
constant charges on the hapless cook, who at last slyly threw 
the shark overboard at a favorable opportunity, and forced 
his master to resort to other varieties of Rhadamantine imple- 
ments. But where was the Oriental all this time ? No one 
could say ; but Charlie, who seemed an authority as to her 
movements, averred she put her helm round as soon as we 
entered the " Swash," and disappeared in black night. 

The Diana had thus distinguished herself bj^ running the 
blockade of Pensacola, but a new triumph awaited her. As 
we approached Fort Morgan a gray streak in the East just 
oflTered light enough to distinguish the outlines of the fort and 
of the Confederate fiag which waved above it. A fair breeze 
carried us abreast of the signal station, one solitary light 
gleamed from the walls, but neither guaixl boat put off to 
board us, nor did sentry hail, nor was gun fired — still we 
stood on. " Captain, had you not better lie to ? They'll be 
sending a round shot after us presently." " No, sir. They are 
all asleep in that fort," replied the indomitable skipper. 

Down went his helm and away ran the Diana into Mobile 
Bay, and was soon safe in the haze beyond shot or shell, run- 
ning toward the opposite shore. This was glory enough, for 
the Diana of Mobile. The wind blew straight from the North 
into our teeth, and at bright sunrise she was only a few miles 
inside the bay. 

All the livelong day was spent in tacking from one low 
shore to another low shore, through water which looked like 
pea soup. We had to be sure the pleasure of seeing Mobile 
from every point of view, east and west, with all the varieties 
between northing and southing, and numerous changes in the 
position of steeples, sandhills, and villas, the sun roasting us 
all the time and boiling the pitch out of the seams. 

The greatest excitement of the day was an encounter with 
a young alligator, making an involuntary voyage out to sea 



224 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

in thi^ tide-way. The crew said he was drowninij, liaving 
lost his way or being exhausted by struggling with the cur- 
rent. He was about ten feet long, and appeared to be so 
utterly done uj) that he would wiUingly have come aboard as 
he passed witliin two yards of us; but desponding as he was, 
it would liave been positive cruelty to have added him to the 
number of our party. 

The next event of the day was dinner, in which Charlie 
outrivalled himself by a tremendous fry of onions and sliced 
i I^ologna sausage, and a piece of pig, which had not decided 
t whether it was to be pork or bacon. 

Having been fourteen hours beating some twenty-seven 
miles, I was landed at last at a wharf in the suburbs of the 
town about five o'clock in the evening. On my way to the 
Battle House I met seven distinct companies marching through 
the streets to drill, and the air was filled with sounds of bu- 
gling and drumming. In the evening a number of gentlemen 
called ujion me to inquire what I thought of Fort Pickens 
and Pensacola, and I had some difficulty in parrying their 
very home questions, but at last adopted a formula which ap- 
peared to please them — I assured my friends I thought it 
would be an exceedingly tough business whenever the bom- 
bai'dment took place. 

One of the most important steps which I have yet heard of 
has excited little attention, namely, the refusal of the officer 
commanding Fort MacHcnry, at Baltimore, to obey a writ of j. 
habeas corpus issued by a judge of that city for the person of S 
a soldier of his garrison. This military officer takes upon " 
himself to aver there is a state of civil war in Baltimore, 
which he considei's sufficient legal cause for the suspension of 
the writ. 



I 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Judge Campbell — Dr. Nott — Slavery — Departure for New Orleans 
— Down the river — Fear of Cruisers — Approach to New Or- 
leans — Duelling — Streets of New Orleans — Unhealthiness of 
the citj — Public opinion as to the war — Happy aud contented 
negroes. 

3fai/ IStli. — An exceedingly hot day, which gives bad 
promise of comfort for the Federal soldiers, who are coming, 
as the Washington Government asserts, to pnt down rebellion 
in tiiese quarters. The mosquitoes are advancing in numbers 
and force. The day I first came I asked the waiter if they 
were numerous. *' I wish they were a hundred times as many," 
said he. On my inquiring if he had any possible reason for such 
an extraordinary aspiration, he said, " because we would get 
rid of these darned black republicans out of Fort Pickens all 
the sooner." The man seemed to infer that they would not 
Lite the Confederate soldiers. 

I dined at Dr. Nott's, and met Judge Campbell, who has 
resigned his high post as one of the Judges of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and explained his reasons for do- 
ing so in a letter, charging Mr. Seward with treachery, dis- 
simulation, and falsehood. He seemed to me a great casuist 
rather than a profound lawyer, and to delight in subtle dis- 
tinctions and technical abstractions ; but I had the advantage 
of hearing from him at great length the whole history of the 
Dred Scott case, and a recapitulation of the arguments used 
on both sides, the force of whicii, in his opinion, was irresist- 
ibly in favor of the decision of the Court. Mr. Forsyth, Col- 
onel Hardee, and others were of the company. 

To me it was very painful to hear a sweet ringing silvery 
voice, issuing from a very pretty mouth, " I'm so delighted to 
hear that the Yankees in Fortress Monroe have got typhus 
fever. I hope it may kill them all." This was said by one 
of the most charming young persons possible, aud uttered with 
10* 



226 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

unmistakable sincerity, just as if she had said, " I hear all the 
snakes in Virginia are dying of poison." I fear the young 
lady did not think very highly of rae for refusing to sympa- 
thize with her wishes in that particular form. But all the 
ladies in Mobile belong to " The Yankee Emancipation So- 
ciety." They spend their days sewing cartridges, carding lint, 
])reparing bandages, and I'm not quite sure that they don't 
iill shells and fuses as well. Their zeal and energy will go 
far to sustain the South in the forthcoming struggle, and no- 
where is the intluence of women greater than in America. 

As to Dr. Nott, his studies have induced him to take a 
j)urely materialist view of the question of slavery, and, accord- 
ing to him, questions of morals and ethics, pertaining to its 
consideration, ought to be referred to the cubic capacity of the 
human cranium — the head that can take the largest charge 
of snipe shot will eventually dominate in some ibrm or other 
over the head of inferior capacity. Dr. Nott detests slavery, 
but he does not see what is to be done with the slaves, and 
how the four millions of negroes are to be prevented from be- 
coming six, eight, or ten millions, if their growth is stimulated 
by high prices for Southern produce. 

There is a good deal of force in the observation which I 
have heard more than once down here, that Great Britain 
could not have emancipated her negroes had they been dwell- 
ing within her border, say in Lancashire or Yorkshire. No 
inconvenience was experienced by the English people per se 
in consequence of the emancipation, which for the time de- 
stroyed industry and shook society to pieces in Jamaica. 
Whilst the States were colonies. Great Britain viewed the 
introduction of slaves to such remote dependencies with sat- 
isfaction, and when the United States had established their 
sovereignty they found the institution of slavery established 
within their own borders, and an important, if not essential, 
stratum in their social system. The work of emancipation 
would have then been comparatively easy ; it now is a stupen- 
dous problem which no human being has offered to solve. 

31ay Idt/i. — The heat out of doors was so great that I felt 
little tempted to stir out, but at two o'clock Mr. IMagee drove 
me to a pretty place, call Spring Hill, where Mr. Stein, a 
German merchant of the city, has his country residence. The 
houses of Mobile merchants are scattered around the rising 
ground in that vicinity ; they look like marble at a distance, 
but a nearer approach resolves them into painted wood. 



MOBILE TO NEW ORLEANS. 227 

Stone is almost unknown on all this seaboard region. The 
worthy German was very hospitable, and I enjoyed a cool 
walk before dinner under the shade of his grapes, which 
formed pleasant walks in his garden. The Scui)|)eriiuiig 
grape, which grew in profusion — a native of North Carolina 
— has a remarkable appearance. The stalk, which is smooth, 
and covered with a close-grained gray bark, has not the char- 
acter of a vine, but grows straight and stiff like the branch of 
a tree, and is crowded with delicious grapes. Ciierokee plum 
and rose-trees, and magnificent magnolias, clustered round his 
house, and beneath their shadow I listened to the worthy Ger- 
man comparing the Fatherland to his adopted country, and 
now and then letting out the secret love of his heart for the 
old place. He, like all of the better classes in the South, has 
the utmost dread of universal suffrage, and would restrict the 
franchise largely to-morrow if he could. 

May 20. — I left Mobile in the steamer Florida for New 
Orleans this morning at eight o'clock. She was crowded with 
passengers, in uniform. In my cabin was a notice of the rules 
and regulations of the steamer. No. 6 was as follows : " All 
slave servants must be cleared at the Custom House. Pas- 
sengers having slaves will please report as soon as they come 
on board." 

A few miles from Mobile the steamer, turning to the right, 
entered one of the narrow channels which perforate the whole 
of the coast, called " Grant's Pass." An ingenious person 
has rendered it navigable by an artificial cut; but as he was 
not an universal pliilanthropist, and possibly may have come 
from north of the Tweed, he further erected a series of bar- 
riers, which can only be cleared by means of a little pepper- 
castor iron ligiithouse ; and he charges toll on all passing ves- 
sels. A small island at the pass, just above water-level, about 
twenty yards broad and one hundred and fifty yards long, was 
being fortified. Some of our military friends landed here ; and 
it required a good deal of patriotism to look cheerfully at the 
prospect of remaining cooped up among the mosquitoes in a 
box, on this miserable sand-bank, which a shell would suffice 
to blow into atoms. 

Having [)assed this channel, our steamer proceeded up a kind 
of internal sea, formed by the shore, on the right hand and on 
the left, by a chain almost uninterrupted of reefs covered with 
sand, and exceedingly^ narrow, so that the surf of the ocean 
rollers at the other side could be seen throuijh the foliage of the 



228 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

pine-trees which line them. On our right the endless pines 
closed up the land view of the horizon ; the beach was pierced 
by creeks without number, called bayous ; and it was curious 
to watch the white sails of the little schooners gliding in and 
out among the trees along the green meadows that seemed to 
stretch as an impassable barrier to their exit. Immense trooi)s 
of pelicans flapped over (he sea, dropping incessantly on the 
lisli which abounded in the inner water ; and long rows of the 
same birds stood digesting their plentiful meals on the white 
beach by the ocean foam. 

There was some anxiety in the passengers' minds, as it was 
reported that the United States cruisers had been seen inside, and 
that they had even burned the batteries on Ship Island. We 
saw nothing of a character more formidable than coasting 
craft and a return steamer from New Orleans till we ap- 
l)ronched the entrance to Pontchartrain, when a large schooner, 
which sailed like a witch and was crammed with men, attracted 
our attention. Through the glass I could make out two guns 
on her deck, and quite reason enough for any well-filled mer- 
cliantman sailing under the Stars and Stripes to avoid her close 
coin|)anionship. 

The ap{)roach to New Orleans is indicated by large hamlets 
and scattered towns along the seashore, hid in th(^ piuey woods, 
wliich offer a retreat to the merchants and their families from 
(he fervid heat of the unwholesome city in summer time. 
As seen from the sea, these sanitary settlements have a pic- 
turesque effect, and an air of charming freshness and lightn(?ss. 
Tiiere are detached villas of every variety of arcliitcctiire in 
which timber can be constructed, painted in the briglitest hues 
— greens, and blues, and rose tints — each embowered in 
magnolias and rhododendrons. From every garden iuvery Ion .j 
and slender pier, terminated by a bathing-box, stretches into 
the shallow sea ; and the general aspect of these houses, with 
the light domes and spires of churches rising above (he linc^ 
of white railings set in the dark green of the pines, is light ami 
novel. To each of these cities there is a jetty, at two of 
which we touched, and landed newspapers, received or dis- 
eliarged a few bales of goods, and were off again. 

Of the little crowd assembled on each, the majority were 
blacks — the whites, almost without exception, in nnifoi'in, and 
armed. A near api)roach did not induce me to think that any 
agencies less powerful tlian epidemics and summer-lieats could 
render Pascagoula, Passchristian, Mississippi City, and the 



AlSr AMERICAN DIFFICULTY. 229 

rest of these settlements very eligible residences for people of 
an active turn of miiul. 

The livelong day my fellow-passengers never ceased talk- 
ing politics, except when they were eating and drinking, 
because the horrible chewing and spitting are not at all in- 
compatible with the maintenance of active discussion. The 
fiercest of them all was a thin, fiery-eyed little woman, who at 
dinner expressed a fervid desire for bits of " Old Abe " — his 
ear, his hair ; but whether tor the purpose of eating or as 
curious relies, she did not enlighten the company. 

After dinner there was some slight ditficulty among the mil- 
itary gentlemen, though whether of a ])olitical or personal 
character, I could not determine ; but it was nuich aggravated 
by the appearance of a six-shooter on the scene, which, to my 
no small perturbation, was presented in a right line with my 
berth, out of the window of which I was looking at the com- 
batants, I am happy to say the immediate delivery of the 
fire was averted by an amicable arrangement that the disputants 
should meet at the St. Charles Hotel at twelve o'clock on the 
second day after their arrival, in order to fix time, place, and 
conditions of a more orthodox and regular encounter. 

At night the steamer entered a dismal canal, through a 
swamp which is infamous as the most mosquito haunted place 
along the infested shore ; the mouths of the Mississippi them- 
selves being (piite innocent, compared to the entrance of Lake 
Pontchartrain. When I woke up at daylight, I found the 
vessel lying along-;ide a wharf with a railway train alongside, 
which is to take us to the city of New Orleans, six miles dis- 
tant. 

A village of restaurants or " restaurats," as they are called 
here, and of bathing boxes has grown up around the terminus; 
all the names of the owners, the notices and sign-boards being 
French. Outside the settlement the railroad passes through a 
swamp, like an Indian jungle, through which the overfiowings 
of the Mississippi creep in black currents. The spires of New 
Orleans rise above the underwood and semi-tropical vegeta- 
tion of this swamp. Nearer to the city lies a marshy plain, 
in which fiocks of cattle, up to the belly in the soft earth are 
floundering among the clumps of vegetation. The nearer 
approach to New Orleans by rail lies through a suburb of 
exceedingly broad lanes, lined on each side by rows of miser- 
able mean one-storied bouses, inhabited, if I am to judge ti'ora 
the specimens I saw, by a miserable and sickly population. 



230 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

A great number of the men and women had evident traces 
of negro blood in their veins, and of the purer blooded whites 
many had the peculiar look of the fishy-fleshy population of 
the Levantine towns, and all were pale and lean. The rail- 
way terminus is marked by a dirty, barrack-like shed in the 
city. Selecting one of the numerous tumble-down hackney 
carriages which crowded the street outside the station, I 
directed the man to drive me to the house of Mr. Mure, the 
British consul, who had been kind enough to invite me as his 
guest for the period of my stay in New Orleans. 

The streets are badly paved, as those of most of the Ameri- 
can cities, if not all that I have ever been in, but in other re- 
spects they are more worthy of a great city than are those of 
New York There is an air thoroughly French about the 
people — cafes, restaurants, billiard-rooms abound, with oyster 
and lager-bier saloons interspersed. The shops are all maga- 
zins ; the people in the streets are speaking French, particu- 
larly the negroes, who are going out shopping with their mas- 
ters and mistresses, exceedingly well dressed, noisy, and not 
unhappy looking. The extent of the drive gave an imposing 
idea of the size of New Orleans — the richness of some of the 
shops, the vehicles in the streets, and the multitude of well- 
dressed people on the pavements, an impression of its wealth 
and the comfort of the inhabitants. The Confederate flag was 
flying from the public buildings and from many private houses. 
Military companies paraded through the sti'eets, and a large 
proportion of men were in uniform. 

In the day I drove through the city, delivered letters of in- 
troduction, paid visits, and examined the shops and the public 
places ; but there is such a whirl of secession and politics sur- 
rounding one it is impossible to discern much of the outer 
world. 

Whatever may be the number of the Unionists or of the 
non-secessionists, a pressure too potent to be resisted has been 
directed by the popular party against the friends of the 
Federal government. The agent of Brown Brothers, of 
Liverpool and New York, has closed their office and is go- 
ing away in consequence of the intimidation of the mob, or as 
the phrase is here, the " excitement of the citizens," on heai'- 
ing of the subscription made by the firm to the New York 
fund, after Sumter had been fired upon. Their agent in 
Mobile has been compelled to adopt the same course. Other 
houses follow theii- example, but as most Uusiness transactiona 



OPINIONS ON THE WAR. 231 

are over for the season, the mercantile community hope the 
contest will be ended before the next season, by the recog- 
nition of Southern Independence. 

The streets are full of Turcos, Zouaves, Chasseurs ; walls 
are covered with placards of volunteer companies ; there are 
Pickwick rifles. La Fayette, Beauregard, MacMahon guards, 
Irish, German, Italian and Spanish and native volunteers, 
among whom the Meagher rifles, indignant with the gentle- 
man from whom they took their name, because of his adhe- 
sion to the North, are going to rebaptize themselves and to 
seek glory under one more auspicious. In fact. New Orleans 
looks like a suburb of the camp at Chalons. Tailors are busy 
night and day making uniforms. I went into a shop with the 
consul for some shirts — the mistress and all her seamstresses 
were busy preparing flags as hard as the sewing-machine 
could stitch them, and could attend to no business for the 
present. The Irish population, finding themselves unable to 
migrate northwards, and being without work, have rushed to 
arras with enthusiasm to support Southern institutions, and 
Mr. John Mitchell and Mr. Meagher stand opposed to each 
other in hostile camps. 

May 2'2d. — The thermometer to-day marked 95° in the 
shade. It is not to be wondered at that New Orleans suflfers 
from terrible epidemics. At the side of each street a filthy 
open sewer flows to and fro with the tide in the blazing sun, 
and Mr. Mure tells me the city lies so low that he has been 
obliged to go to his office in a boat along the streets, 

I sat for some time listening to the opinions of the various 
merchants who came in to talk over the news and politics in 
general. They were all persuaded that Great Britain would 
speedily recognize the South, but I cannot find that any of 
them had examined into the effects of such a recognition. One 
gentleman seemed to think to-day that recognition meant forcing 
the blockade ; whei'eas it nmst, as I endeavored to show him, 
merely lead to the recognition of the rights of the United States 
to establish a blockade of ports belonging to an independent 
and hostile nation. There are some who maintain there will be 
no war after all ; that the North will not tight, and that the 
friends of the Southern cause will recover their courage when 
tlxis tyranny is over. No one imagines the South will ever 
go back to the Union voluntarily, or that the North has power 
to thrust it back at the_point of the bayonet. 

The South has commenced preparations for the contest by 



232 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Rowing grain instead of planting cotton, to compensate for the 
loss of sup]>lies from the North. The payment of debts to 
Northern creditors is declared to be illegal, and " stay laws " 
have been adopted in most of tlie seceding States, by which the 
ordinary laws for the recovery of debts in the States them- 
selves are for the time suspended, whicli may lead one into 
the belief that the legislators themselves belong to the debtor 
instead of the creditor class. 

May 23d. — As the mail communication has been suspend- 
ed between North and South, and the Express Companies are 
ordered not to carry letters, I sent off" my packet of despatches 
to-day, by Mr. Ewell, of the house of Deiniistoun & Co. ; 
and resumed my excursions through New Orleans. 

Tlui young artist, wlio is stopping at the St. Cliarles Hotel, 
came to me in great agitation to say his life was in danger, in 
consequence of his former connection willi an abolition paper 
of New York, and that h(> had been threatened with death by 
a num with whom he had had a quarrel in Washington. Mr. 
Mure, to calm his apprehensions, ottered to take him to the 
authorities of the town, who would, no doubt, protect him, as 
he was merely engaged in making sketches for an English 
periodical, but the young man declared he was in danger of 
assassination. He entreated Mr. Mure to give iiim despatches 
whicii would serve to pi'otect him. on his way northward ; and 
the Consul, moved by his mental distress, {)romised that if he 
had any letters of an official character for Washington he 
would send them by him, in d(^fiiult of otiier opportunities. 

I dined with INIajor Ranney, the president of one of the 
railways, with wiiom Mr. Ward was stopping. Among the 
company were Mr. P^ustis, son-in-law of Mr. Slidell ; Mr. 
Morse, the Attorney-General of tiie State ; Mr. Moise, a Jew, 
supposed to have considerable influence with the Governor, 
and a velieinent politician ; Messrs. Hunt, and others. The 
table was excellent, and the wines were wortiiy of the reputation 
which our host enjoys, in a city where Sallusts and LucuUi are 
said to abound. One of the slave servants wlio waited at 
table, an intelligent yellow " boy," was pointed out to me as a 
son of General Andrew Jackson. 

We had a full account of the attack of the British troops 
on the city, and their repulse. Mr. Morse denied empliatical- 
ly that there was any cotton bag fortiticatiou in front of the 
lines, where our troops were defeated ; he asserted that there 
were only a few bales, I think seventy-live, used in the con- 



FEARS OF NEGRO REVOLT. 233 

structioH of one battery, and that they and some sugar hogs- 
heads, constituted the sole defences of the American trench. 
Only one citizen applied to the State for compensation, on 
account of the cotton used by Jackson's troops, and he owned 
the whole of the bales so appropriated. 

None of the Southern gentlemen have the smallest apj)re- 
hension of a servile insurrection. Tliey use the univeral for-i 
mula " our negroes are the happiest, most fx)ntented, and most 
comfortable people on the face of the earth." I admit I have 
been struck by well-clad and good-humored negroes in the 
streets, but th(;y are in the minority ; many look morose, ill- 
clad, and discontented. The [)atrols I know have been strength- 
ened, and I heard a young lady the otiier night, say, " I shall 
not be a bit afraid to go back to the plantation, though mamma 
says the negroes are after mischief." 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The first blow struck — The St. Charles Hotel — Invasion of Virginia 
by the Federals — Death of Col. Ellsworth — Evening at Mr 
Slidell's — Public comments on the war — Richmond the capita, 
of the Confederacy — Militarj^ preparations — General society — 
Jewish element — Visit to a battle-field of 1815. 

3Iay 24:th. — A great budget of news to-day, which, with 
the events of the week, may be briefly enumerated. The 
fighting has actually commenced between the United States 
steamers off Fortress Monroe, and the Confederate battery 
erected at Sewall's Point — botli sides claim a certain success. 
The Confederates declare they riddled the steamer, and that 
they killed and wounded a number of the sailors. The cap- 
tain of the vessel says he desisted fi'om want of ammunition, 
but believes he killed a number of the rebels, and knows he 
had no loss himself. Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the sover- 
eign State of Kentucky, has warned off both Federal and 
Confederate soldiers from his territory. The Confedei'ate 
congress has passed an act authorizing persons indebted to the 
United States, except Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Mis- 
souri, and the District of Columbia, to pay the amount of their 
debts to the Confederate treasury. The State convention of 
North Carolina has passed an ordinance of secession. Ar- 
kansas has sent its delegates to the Southern congress. Sev- 
eral Southern vessels have been made prizes by the block- 
ading squadron ; but the event which causes the greatest 
excitement and indignation here, was the seizure, on Monday, 
by the United States marshals, in every large city through- 
out the Union, of the telegraphic despatches of the last twelve 
months. 

In the course of the day, I went to the St. Charles Hotel, 
which is an enormous establishment, of the American type, 
with a Southern character about it. A number of gentlemen 
were seated in the hall, and front of the office, with their legs 
up against the wall, and on the backs of chairs, smoking, spit- 



ELLSWORTH SHOT. 235 

ting, and reading the papers. Officers crowded the bar. The 
bustle and noise of the place would make it anything but an 
agreeable residence for one fond of quiet ; but this hotel is 
famous for its difficulties. Not the least disgraceful among 
them, was the assault committed by some of Walker's fili- 
busters, upon Captain Aldham of the Royal Navy. 

The young artist, who has been living in great seclusion, 
was fastened up in his room ; and when I informed him that 
Mr. Mure had despatches which he might take, if he liked, 
that night, he was overjoyed to excess. He started off north 
in the evening, and I saw him no more. 

At half-past four, I went down by train to the terminus on 
the lake, where I had landed, which is the New Orleans Rich- 
mond, or rather, Greenwich, and dined with Mr. Eustis, Mr. 
Johnson, an English merchant, Mr. Josephs, a New Orleans 
lawyer, and Mr. Hunt. The dinner was worthy of the repu- 
tation of the French cook. The terrapin soup excellent, 
though not comparable, as Americans assert, to the best tur- 
tle. The creature from which it derives its name, is a small 
tortoise ; the flesh is boiled somewhat in the manner of turtle, 
but the soup abounds in small bones, and the black paws with 
the white nail-like stumps projecting from them, found amongst 
the disjecta membra, are not agi'eeable to look upon. The 
bouillabaisse was unexceptionable, the soft crab worthy of 
every commendation ; but tlie best dish was, unquestionably, 
the pompinoe, an odd fish, something like an unusually ugly 
John Dory, but possessing admirable qualities in all that 
makes fish good. The pleasures of the evening were en- 
hanced by a most glorious sunset, which cast its last rays 
through a wilderness of laurel roses in full bloom, which 
thronged the garden. At dusk, the air was perfectly alive 
with fire-flies and strange beetles. Flies and coleopters 
buzzed in through the open windows, and flopped among the 
glasses. At half-past nine we returned home, in cars drawn 
by horses along the rail. 

May 2oth. — Virginia has indeed been invaded by the Fed- 
erals. Alexandria has been seized. It is impossible to de- 
scribe the excitement and rage of the people ; they take, how- 
ever, some consolation in the fact that Colonel Ellsworth, in 
command of a regiment of New York Zouaves, was shot by 
J. T. Jackson, the laiullord of an inn in the city, called the 
Marshall House. Ellsworth, on the arrival of his regiment in 
Alexandi'ia, proceeded to take down the Secession flag, which 



236 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

had been long seen from the President's windows. He went out 
upon the roof, cut it from the staff, and was proceeding with it 
down-stairs, when a man rushed out of a room, levelled a double- 
barrelled gun, shot Colonel Ellsworth dead, and fired the other 
barrel at one of his men, who had struck at tlie piece, when 
the murderer presented it at the Colonel. Almost instantane- 
ously, the Zouave shot Jackson in the head, and as he was 
falling dead thrust his sabre bayonet through his body. Strange 
to say, the people of New Orleans, consider Jackson was com- 
pletely right, in shooting the Federal Colonel, and maintain 
that the Zouave, who shot Jackson, was guilty of murder. 
Their theory is that Ellsworth had come over with a horde 
of ruffianly abolitionists, or, as the " Richmond Examiner " has 
it, " the band of thieves, robbers, and assassins, in the pay of 
Abraham Lincoln, commonly known as the United States 
Ai'my," to violate the territory of a sovereign State, in order 
to execute their bloody and brutal purposes, and that he was 
in the act of committing a robbery, by taking a flag which did 
not belong to him, when he met his righteous fate. 

It is curious to observe how passion blinds man's reason, in 
this quarrel. More curious still to see, by the light of this 
event, how differently the same occurrence is viewed by 
Northerners and Southerners respectively. Jackson is depict- 
ed in the Northern papers as a fiend and an assassin ; even 
his face in death is declared to have worn a revolting expres- 
sion of rage and hate. The Confederate flag which was the 
cause of the fatal affray, is described by one writer, as having 
been purified of its baseness, by contact with Ellsworth's blood. 
The invasion of Virginia is hailed on all sides of the North 
with the utmost enthusiasm. " Ellsworth is a martyr hero, 
whose name is to be held sacred forever." 

On the other hand, the Southern papers declare that the in- 
vasion of Virginia, is " an act of the Washington tyrants, 
which indicates their bloody and brutal purpose to exterminate 
the Southern people. The Virginians will give the world 
another proof, like that of Moscow, that a free people, fighting 
on a free soil, are invincible when contending for all that is 
dear to man." Again — "A band of execrable cut-throats and 
jail-birds, known as the Zouaves of New York, under that 
chief of all scoundrels, Ellsworth, broke open the door of a 
citizen, to tear down the flag of the house — the courageous 
owner met the favorite hero of the Yankees in his own hall, 
alone, against thousands, and shot him through the heart — he 



MR. SLIDELL. 237 

died a death which emperors might envy, and his memory will 
live through endless generations." Desperate, indeed, must 
have been the passion and anger of the man who, in the fullest 
certainty that immediate death must be its penalty, committed 
such a deed. As it seems to me, Colonel Ellsworth, however 
injudicious he may have been, was actually in the performance 
of his duty when taking down the flag of an enemy. 

In the evening I visited Mr. Slidell, whom I found at home, 
with his family, Mi's. SHdell and her sister Madame Beaure- 
gard, wife of the general, two very charming young ladies, 
daughters of the house, and a parlor full of fair companions, 
engaged, as hard as they could, in carding lint with their fair 
hands. Among the company was Mr. Slidell's son, who had 
just travelled from school at the North, under a feigned name, 
in order to escape violence at the hands of the Union mobs 
which are said to be insulting and outraging every Southern 
man. The conversation, as is the case in most Creole domestic 
circles, was carried on in French. I rarely met a man whose 
features have a greater finesse and firmness of pui'pose than 
Mr. Slidell's ; his keen gray eye is full of life ; his thin, firmly- 
set lips indicate resolution and passion. Mr. Slidell, though 
born in a Northern State, is perhaps one of the most deter- 
mined disunionists in the Southern Confederacy ; he is not a 
speaker of note, nor a ready stump orator, nor an able wi'iter; 
but he is an excellent judge of mankind, adroit, persevering, 
and subtle, full of device, and fond of intrigue ; one of those 
men, who, unknown almost to the outer world, organizes and 
sustains a faction, and exalts it into the position of a party — 
what is called here a " wire-puller." Mr. Slidell is to the 
South something greater than Mr. Thurlow Weed has been to 
his party in the North. He, like every one else, is convinced 
that recognition must come soon ; but, under any circumstances, 
he is quite satisfied, the government and independence of the 
Southern Confederacy are as completely established as those 
of any power in the world. Mr. Slidell and the members of 
his family possess naivete, good sense, and agreeable man- 
ners ; and the regrets I heard expressed in Washington 
society, at their absence, had every justification. 

I supped at the club, which I visited every day since I was 
made an honorary member, as all the journals are there, and 
a great number of planters and merchants, well acquainted 
with the state of affairs in the South. There were two Eng- 
lishmen present, Mi*. Lingam and another, the most deter- 



238 MY DIARY NOKTII AND SOUTH. 

mined secessionists and the most devoted advocates of slavery 
I have yet met in the course of my travels. 

Afiii/ 2C>//i. — The heat to-day was so great, that I felt a 
return of my old Indian (experiences, and was unahle to go, 
as 1 intended, to hear a very eminent preacher discourse on 
the war at one of the priueipal chapcds. 

All disposable rei;;im('nts are on the march to Vir<ijinia. It 
was bad [)olicy lor Mr. Jefferson Davis to menace Washington 
l)(!H)re he could seriously carry oiit his threats, because the 
North was excited by the speech of his 8e{'retary at War to 
take extraordinary measures for the defence of their capital; 
and General Scott was enabled by their enlhusiasm not only 
to provide for its defence, but to effect a lodgment at Alexan- 
dria, as a bas(! of operations against the enemy, 

Wlien the Congress at MontgonKM-y adjounuMl, the other 
day, they resolvtHl to meet on the 20th of July at Richmond, 
which I bus becomes the capital of the Confederacy. The 
city is not much more than one himdred miles south of Wash- 
ington, with which it was in communic-ation by rail and river; 
and the selection must cause a collision between the two ar- 
mies in front of the rival capitals. The seizun; of the Nor- 
folk navy yard by the Coid'ederates rendered it necessary to 
reinforc(! l<\)i-tress Monroe ; and for the present the Potomac 
and the Chesa|)eake are out of danger. 

The military precautions taken by Greneral Scott, and the 
movements attributed to him to hold Baltimore and to main- 
tain Ids comnninications between WasluTigton and th(! North, 
afford evidence of judgnKuit and military skill. The North- 
ern papers are clamoring for an immediate advance of their 
raw levies to Richmond, which (Jeneral Scott resists. 

In one respect the South has shown greater sagacity than 
the Nortli. Mr. Jefferson Davis having seen si-rvice in the 
fi(dd, and having been Secretary of War, perceived the dan- 
gers and inefhciency of irregular levies, and therefore induced 
the Montgomery congress to pass a bill whicii binds volun- 
teers to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged, and 
reserves to the President of the Southern Confederacy the 
appointment of staff and field officers, the right of veto to 
battalion otlicers elected by (>ach company, and the power of 
organizing companies of volunteers into sfpiadrons, battalions, 
and regiments. Writing to the "Times," at this date, I observed : 
"Allhough immense levies of men may be got together for 
purposes of local defence or aggressive operations, it will be 



"CHARGES OF ABOLITIONISM." 289 

very difllcult to movo fliese masses like regular armies. There 
is an utter want of field-trains, ef|uip!i<^e, and eoinmissariat, 
which eannot he inaihf ^ood in a day, .i week, or a month. 
The absence of cavalry, and the utt(!r dcdciency of" artil!(M-y, 
may prevent eithe; side obtaining any decisive result in one 
engagement ; but there can be no doubt Iarg(! losses will be 
incurred whenever these masses of men are fairly o[)posed to 
each other in the open field." 

Mai/ 27th. — 1 visited several of the local companies, their 
drill-grounds and parades ; but few of the men were present, 
as nearly all are under orders to proc(!ed to tiie camp at Tan- 
gipao or to march to Richmond. Privates and olficcu-s are 
busy in the sweltering streets ])urchasing necessaries for their 
journey. As one looks at the resolute, (piick, angry fac«!fl 
around him, and hears but the single themes he must teel the 
South will never yield to tlu; North, unless as a nation which 
is beaten beneath tlu; feet of a victorious enemy. 

In ^^\•^ivy Slat(i then; is only one voice audible. Hereafter, 
indeed, state; jealousic^s may work their own way ; but if 
words means anytiiing, all tin; Soutliern ]»eople an; det(;rmined 
to resist Mr. Jjincoln's invasion as long as they have; a man 
or a dollar. Still, there are <;ertain hard facts which militate 
against the truth of their own assertions, " that they are united 
to a man, and prepared to light to a man." Ordy 1 "),()()() jire 
under arms out of the 50,000 men in the State of J^oiiisiana 
liable to military servicer 

" Cliarg(!s of abolitionism " appear in the reports of police 
cases in the papers every morning ; and persons found guilty, 
not of exprcissing opinions against slavery, but of stating their 
belief that tin; North(!rners will b(! successful, are sent to 
prison for six months. The accused are generally foreigners, 
or belong to the lower orders, who have got no interest in the 
support of slavery. The moral suasion of the lasso, of tar- 
ling and feathering, head-shaving, ducking, and horseponds, 
deportation on rails, and simihir ethical processes arc liighly 
in favor. As yet the Nortii have not arrived at such an ele- 
vated view of tiie necessities of their position. 

The New Orleans pajters are facetious over their new mode 
of securing unanimity, and highly laud what tliey call " the 
course of instruction in the; humane institution for the amelio- 
ration of the condition of Northern barbarians and abolition 
fanatics, presidcid over "by I'rofessor llciu-y IMitchell," who, in 
other words, is the jailer of the work-house reformatory. 



240 RIY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

I iliiunl at the Lake with IMr. Mure, General Lewis, Ma- 
jor Ranney, Mr. Duncan Keiuier, a Mississippi planter, INIr. 
Claihorne, &e., and visited the elub in tlie evening. Every 
nijjiit since I have been in New Orleans there have been one 
or two fires ; to-night there W(M-e three — one a tremendous 
conflagration. AVhen I inquired to what they were attributa- 
ble, a gentleman who sat near me, bent over, and looking mc 
straight in the face, said, in a low voice, " The slaves." The 
flues, perhaps, and the system of stoves, may also bear somt; 
of the blame. Tlicrc is great entinisiasm among the town's- 
people in consequence of the Washington artillery, a crack 
corps, furnished by the tirst people in New Orleans, being or- 
dered otV for Virginia. 

Maji '2Sf/i. — On dropping in at the Consulate to-day, I 
found tlie skippers of several English vessels who are anxious 
to clear out, lest they be detainivl by the Federal cruisers. 
The Unit(Hl States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have 
been for some days past blockading Pass a routre. One 
citizen made a remarkable pro|)osition to Mr. Mure. He 
came in to borrow an ensign of the Royal Yacht Sipiadron for 
tlie purpose, he said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and 
running down to have a look at the Yankee ships. Mr. Rlure 
liad no flag to lend ; whereupon he asked for a description 
by wiii(^h he could get one made. Oi\ being ap|)lied to, I asked 
''whether the gentleman was a member of tiw Stpiadron?" 
"Oh, no," said lie, "but my yacht was built in England, and T 
wrote over some time ago to say I would join tlie squadron." 
I venttu'cd to tell iiim that it by no means followed be was a 
member, and that if he went out with the flag and could not 
show by his papers he had a rigiit to carry it, the yacht would 
be seized, llowtner, he was quite salislied that he had an 
English yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag, and went oft' 
to an outfitter's to order a far-siinile of the squadron ensign, 
and subseipuMitly cruised among the blockading vessels. 

We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union mob in 
Tennessee, his luggage was broken open and plundered, and 
he narrowly escaped personal injury. Per contra, " charges 
of abolitionism," continue to multiply here, and are almost as 
ninnerous as the coroner's inquests, not to speak of the 
dilliculties which sometimes attain tlu^ magnitude of murder. 

I diiu'd with a larg(> party at the Lake, who had invited me 
as their guest, among whom were Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert, 
Mr. Hunt, Mr. Norton, Mr. Fellows, and others. I observed 



A NEW ORLEANS OFFICIAL. 241 

in Now York that every man had his own sohition of the cause 
of the present dilUeiihy, andcontradieted [dninply liis neighbor 
the nionient he attempted to propound his own theory. Here 
I found every one agreed as to the righteousness of tlie quar- 
rel, but all differed as to the best mode of action for the South 
to pursue. Nor was there any approach to. unanimity as the 
evening waxed older. Incidentally we had wild tales of 
Southern life, some good songs curiously intermingled with 
political discNssions, and what the Northerners call hyphileutia 
talk. 

When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tall and well-dressed, 
but not very prepossessing-looking man, entered to speak to 
IVIr. Mure on business, and was introduced to me at his own 
request. His name was mentioned incidentally to-night, and 
I heard a passage in his life not of an agreeable character, to 
say the least of it. A good many years ago there was a ball 
at New Orleans, at which this gentleman was present : he paiiL 
particular attention to a lady, who, however, preferred the 
society of one of the company, and in the course of the even- 
ing an altercation occurred respecting an engagement to 
dance, in which violent language was exdianged, and a push 
or blow given by the favored partner to his rival, who letl 
the room, and, as it is stated, proceeded to a cutler's shop, 
where he procund a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with 
this, he returned, and sent in a message to the gentleman 
with whom he had quarrelled. Suspecting nothing, the latter 
came into the antechamber, the assassin rushed upon him, 
stabbed him to the heart, and left him weltering in his blood. 
Another version of the story was, that he waited tor his vic- 
tim till he came into the cloak-room, and struck him as he 
was in the act of putting on his overcoat. After a long de- 
lay, the criminal was tried. The defence put forward on his 
behalf was that he had seized a knife in the heat of the mo- 
ment when the quarrel took place, and had slain his adversary 
in a moment of passion ; but evidence, as I understand, went 
strongly to prove that a considerable interval elapsed between 
the time of the dispute and the conunission of the murder. 
The prisoner had the assistance of able and ingeni<)us cmni- 
sel; lie was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to the 
judicious disposition of a large sum of money ; each juroij 
when he retired to dinner previous to consulting over the ver 
diet, was enabled to ti'nd the sum of 1000 dollars under his 
plate ; uor was it clear that the judge and sheritf had not par- 
11 



242 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ticipated in the bounty ; in fact, I heard a dispute as to the 
exact amount wliich it is supposed the murderer liad to pay. 
He now occupies, under the Confederate Government, the 
post at New Orleans which he lately held as representative 
of the Government of the United States. 

After dinner I went in company of some of my hosts to 
the Boston Club, which has, I need not say, no connection 
with tlie city of that name. More fires, the tocsin sounding, 
and so to bed. 

May "i^dth. — Dined in the evening with M. Aristide Milten- 
berger, where I met His Excellency Mr. Moore, the Gov- 
ernor of Louisiana, his military secretary, and a small party. 

It is a strange country, indeed ; one of the evils which 
afflicts the Louisianians, they say, is the preponderance and 
influence of South Carolinian Jews, and Jews generally, such 
as Moise, Mordecai, Josephs, and Judah lienjamin, and others, 
^he subtlety and keenness of the Caucasian intellect give 
men a high place among a people who admire ability and 
dexterity, and are at the same time reckless of means and 
averse to labor. The Governor is supposed to be somewhat 
under the influence of the Hebrews, but he is a man quite 
com[)etent to think and to act for himself, — a plain, sincere 
ruler of a Slave State;, and an upholder of the patriarchal in- 
stitute. After dinner we accompanied Madam Milten-berger 
(who affords in lier own person a very complete refutation of 
ihe dogma that American women furnish no examples of the 
charms which surround their English sisters in the transit 
from the prime of life towards middle age), in a drive along 
the shell road to the lake and canal ; the most remarkable 
object being a long wall lined witii a glorious growth of orange- 
trees : clouds of tnoscpiitoes eflectually interfered with an en- 
joyment of the drive. 

May 30th. — Wrote in the heat of the day, enlivened by 
my neighbor, a wonderful mocking-bird, whose songs and 
jinitations would make his fortune in any society capable of 
appreciating native-born genius. His restlessness, courage, 
activity, and talent, ought not to be confined to Mr. Mure's 
cage, but he seems contented and happy. I dined with Ma- 
dame and IM. Milten-berger, and drove out with them to visit 
the scene of our defeat in 1815, which lies at the distance of 
some miles down the river. 

A dilapidated fiirm-liouse surrounded by trees and negro 
huts, marks tlie spot where Pakenham was buried, I)ut his 



THE REPULSE AT NEW ORLEANS. 243 

body was subsoqiicntly exhumed and sent home to England. 
Close to the point of the canal which constitutes a portion of 
the American defences, a negro guide came forth to conduct 
us round the place, but he knew as little as most guides of the 
incidents of the light. The most remarkable testimony to the 
severity of the lire to which the British were exposed, is 
afforded by the trees in the neighborhood of the tomb. In 
one live-oak there are no less than eight round shot embedded ; 
others contain two or three, and many are lopped, rent, and 
scarred by the flight of cannon-ball. The American lines 
extended nearly three miles, and were covered in the front by 
swainps, marshes, and water cuts, their batteries and the ves- 
sels in the river enfiladed the British as they advanced to the 
attack. 

Among the prominent defenders of the cotton bales was a 
notorious pirate and murderer named Lafitte, who with his 
band was released from prison on condition that he enlisted in 
the defence, and did substantial service to his friends and 
deliverers. 

Without knowing all the circumstances of the case, it would 
be rash now to condemn the officers who directed the assault ; 
but so far as one could judge from the present condition of 
the ground, the position must have been very formidable, and 
should not have been assaulted till the enfilading fire was sub- 
dued, and a very heavy covering fire directed to silence the 
guns m front. The Americans are naturally very proud of 
their victory, which was gained at a most trifi'ing loss to them- 
selves, which they erroneously conceive to be a proof of their 
gallantry in resisting the assault. It is one of the events 
which have created a fixed idea in their minds that they are 
able to " whip the world." 

On returning from my visit I went to the club, where I had 
a long conversation with Dr. Rushton, who is strongly con- 
vinced of th(; impossibility of carrying on government'; or con- 
diictmg municipal affairs, until universal suffrage is put down. 
He gave many instances of the terrorism, violence, and assas- 
sinations which prevail during election times in New Orleans. 
M. Milten-berger, on the contrary, thinks matters are very 
well as they are, and declares all these stories are fanciful. 
Incendiarism rife again. All the club windows crowded with 
men looking at a tremendous fire, which burned down three or 
tour stores and houses. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Carrying arms — New Orleans jail — Desperate characters — Execu- 
tions — Female maniacs and prisoners — Tlie river and levee — 
Climate of New Orloans — I'opulation — General distress — Pres- 
sure of the blockade — Money — Philosophy of abstract rights — 
The doctrine of state rights — Theoretical defect in the constitu- 
tion. 

May 31s/. — I went with Mr. Mure to visit the jail. We 
met the sheriff, according to appointment, at the police court. 
Something Hke a sheriff — a great, big, burly, six-foot man, 
with revolvers stuck in his belt, and strength and arms quite 
sufficient to enable him to execute his office in its highest 
degree. Speaking of the numerous crimes committed in New 
Orleans, he declared it was a perfect hell upon earth, and that 
nothing would ever put an end to murders, manslaughters, and 
deadly assaults, till it was made penal to carry arms ; but by 
law every American citizen may walk with an armory round 
his waist, if he likes. Bar-rooms, cock-tails, mint-juleps, 
gambling-houses, political discussions, and imperfect civiliza- 
tion do the rest. 

The jail is a square whitewashed building, witli cracked 
walls and barred windows. In front of the open door were 
seated four men on chairs, with their legs cocked against the 
wall, smoking and reading newspapers. " Well, what do you 
want?" said one of them, without rising. "To visit the 
prison." '' Have you got friends inside, or do you carry an 
order ? " The necessary document from our friend the 
sheriff, was produced. We entered through the doorway, 
into a small hall, at the end of which was an iron grating and 
door. A slightly -built young man, who was lolling in his 
shirt-sleeves on a chair, rose and examined the order, and, 
taking down a bunch of keys from a hook, and introducing 
himself to us as one of the warders, opened the iron door, 
and preceded us tlnough a small passage into a square court- 
yard, formed on one side by a high wall, and on the othei 



JAIL AT NEW ORLEANS. 245 

three by windowed walls and cells, with doors opening on the 
court. It was filled with a crowd of men and boys ; some 
walking up and down, others sitting, and groups on the pave- 
ment ; some moodily apart, smoking or chewing ; one or 
two cleaning their clothes, or washing at a small tank. We 
walked into the midst of them, and the warder, smoking his 
cigar and looking coolly about him, pointed out the most 
desperate criminals. 

This crowded and most noisome place was filled with felons 
of every description, as well as with poor wretches merely 
guilty of larceny. Hardened murderers, thieves, and assas- 
sins, were here associated with boys in their teens, who were 
undergoing imprisonment for some trifling robbery. It was 
not pleasant to rub elbows with miscreants who lounged past, 
almost smiling defiance, whilst the >;lim warder, in his straw 
hat, shirt-sleeves, and drawers, told you how such a fellow 
had murdered his mother, how another had killed a police- 
man, or a third had destroyed no less than .three persons in a 
few moments. Here were seventy murderers, pirates, bur- 
glars, violaters, and thieves, circulating among men who had 
been proved guilty of no offence, but were merely waiting for 
their trial. 

A veranda ran along one side of. the wall, above a row of 
small cells, containing truckle beds for the inmates. " That's 
a desperate chap, I can tell you," said the warder, pointing to 
a man who, naked to his shirt, was sitting on the flooi", with 
heavy irons on his legs, which they chafed notwithstanding the 
bloody rags around them, engaged in playing cards with a fel- 
low prisoner, and smoking with an air of supreme contentment. 
The prisoner turned at the words, and gave a kind of grunt 
and chuckle, and then played his next card. " That," said the 
warder, in the proud tone of a menagerie keeper exhibiting 
his fiercest wild beast, " is a real desperate character ; his 
name is Gordon ; I guess he comes from your country ; he 
made a most miraculous attempt to escape, and all but suc- 
ceeded ; and you would never believe me if I told you that 
he hooked on to that little spout, climbed up the angle of that 
wall there, and managed to get across to the ledge of that win- 
dow over the outside wall before he was (discovered." And 
indeed it did require the corroborative twinkle in the fellow's 
eye, as he heard of his own exploit, to make me believe 
that the feat thus indicated could be performed by mortal 
man. 



246 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

" There's where we hang theiu," continued he, pointing to a 
small black door, let into the wall, about eighteen feet from the 
ground, with some iron hooks above it. " They walk out on 
the door, which is shot on a bolt, and when the rope is round 
their necks from the hook, the door's let flop, and they swing 
over the court-yard." The prisoners are shut up in their cells 
during the execution, but they can see what is passing, at least 
those who get good places at the windows. " Some of them," 
added the warder, " do die very brave indeed. Some of them 
abuse as you never heard. But most of them don't seem to 
like it " 

Passing from the yard, we proceeded up-stairs to the first 
floor, where were the debtors' rooms. These were tolerably 
comfortable, in comparison to the wretched cells we had seen ; 
but the poorer debtors were crowded togethei", three or four in 
a room. As far as I could ascertain, there is no insolvency 
law, but the debtor is free, after ninety days' imprisonment, if 
his board and lodging be paid for. " And what if they are 
not ? " " Oh, Well, in that caSe we keep them till all is paid, 
adding of course for every day they are kept." 

In one of these rooms, sitting on his bed, looking wicked 
and gloomy, and with :i glare like that of a wild beast in his 
eyes, was a Doctor Withers, who, a few days ago, murdered 
his son-in-law and his wife, in a house close to Mr. Mure's. 
He was able to pay for this privilege, and " as he is a respect- 
able man," said the warder, " perhaps he may escape the 
worst." 

Turning from this department into another gallery, the 
warder went to an iron door, above which was painted a 
death's head and cross-bones ; beneath were the words " con- 
demned cell." 

He opened the door, which led to a short narrow covered 
gallery, one side of which looked into a court-yard, admitting 
light into two small chambers, in which were pallets of straw 
covered with clean counterpanes. 

Six men were walking up and down in the passage. In the 
flrst room there was a table, on which were placed missals, 
neatly bound, and very clean religious books, a crucifix, and 
Agtms Dei. Tli5 whitewashed wall of this chamber was cov- 
ered with mo>t curious drawings in charcoal or black chalk, 
divided into compartments, and representing scenes in the life 
of the unliapjjy artist, a Frenchman, executed some years ago 
for murderujg his mistress, depicting his temptations, — his 



FEMALE MANIACS. 247 

gradual fall from innocence, — his society with abandoned 
men and women, — intermingled with Scriplural subjects, 
Christ walking on the waters, and holding out liis hand to the 
culprit, — the murderer's corpse in the grave, — angels visit- 
ing and lamenting over it ; — finally, the resurrection, in which 
he is seen ascending to heaven ! 

My attention was attracted from this extraordinary room to 
' an open gallery at the other side of the court-yard, in which 
were a number of women with dishevelled Iiair and torn 
clothes, some walking up and down restlessl3% others scream- 
ing loudly, while some with indecent gestures were yelling to 
the wretched men opposite to them, as they were engaged in 
their miserable promenade. 

Shame and horror to a Christian land ! These women 
were maniacs ! They are kept here until there is room for 
them at the State Lunatic Asylum. Night and day their 
terrible cries and ravings echo tlirough the dreary, waking 
hours and the fitful slumbers of the wretched men so soon 
to die. 

Two of those who walked in that gallery are to die to- 
morrow. 

AVhat a mockery — the crucifix ! — the Agnus Dei f — the 

holy books ! I turned with sickness and loathing from the 

dreadful place. " But," said the keeper, apologetically, 

" there's not one of them believes he'll be lianged." 
****** 

We next visited the women's gallery, where female crimi- 
nals of all classes are huddled together indiscriminately. On 
opening the door, the stench from the o[)en veranda, in which 
the prisoners were sitting, was so vile that I could not proceed 
further ; but I saw enough to convince me that the ])oor, err- 
ing woman who was |)ut in there for some trifling offence, and 
placed in contact with the beings who were uttering such lan- 
guage as we heard, might indeed leave hope behind her. 

The prisoners have no beds to sleep upon, not even a blanket, 
and are thrust in to lie as they please, five in each small cell. 
It may be imagined what the tropical heat produces under 
sucli conditions as these ; but as the surgeon was out, I could 
obtain no information respecting the rates of sickness or 
mortality. 

I next proceeded to .a yard somewhat smaller than that ap- 
propriated to serious offenders, in which were confined pris- 
oners condemned for short sentences, for such offences as 



248 MY DIARY NuRTH AND SOUTH. 

drunkenness, assault, and the like. Anionjf the prisoners were 
some English sailors, confined for assaults on their officers, or 
breach of articles; all of whom had complaints to make to the 
Consul, as to arbitrary arrests and unfounded charges. Mr. 
Mure told me that when the port is full he is constantly en- 
gaged inquiring into such cases ; and I am sorry to learn that 
the men of our commercial marine occasion a good deal of 
trouble to the authorities. 

I left the prison in no very charitable mood towards the 
] ^ople who sanctioned such a disgraceful institution, and pro- 
i jeded to complete my tour of the city. 

The " Levee," which is an enormous embankment to pre- 
vent tlie inundation of the river, is now nearly deserted ex- 
cept by the river steamers, and those which have been unable 
to run the blockade. As New Orleans is on an average three 
feet below the level of the river at high water, this work re- 
quires constant supervision ; it is not less than fifteen feet 
broad, and rises five or six feet above the level of the adja- 
cent street, and it is continued in an almost unbroken line for 
several hundreds of miles up the course of the Mississippi. 
When the bank gives way, or a " crevasse," as it is techni- 
cally called, occurs, the damage done to the plantations has 
sometimes to be calculated by millions of dollars ; when the 
river is very low there is a new form of danger, in what is 
called the " caving in " of the bank, which, left without the 
support of the water pressure, slides into the bed of the giant 
river. 

New Orleans is called the " Crescent City " in consequence 
of its being built on a curve of the river, which is here about 
the breadth of the Thames at Gravesend, and of great depth. 
Enormous cotton presses are erected near the banks, where 
the bales are compressed by machinery before stowage on ship- 
board, at a heavy cost to the planter. 

The custom-house, the city-hall, and the United States mint, 
are fine buildings, of rather pretentious architecture ; the for- 
mer is the largest building in the States, next to the capital. 
I was informed that on the levee, now almost deserted, there 
is during the cotton and sugar season a scene of activity, life, 
and noise, the like of which is not in the world. Even Can- 
ton does not show so many boats on the river, not to speak of 
steamers, tugs, flat-boats, and the like ; and it niay be easily 
imagined that such is the case, when we know that the value 
of the cotton sent in the yeaf from this port alone exceeds 



MR BIBB AND SELF-DEFENCE. 249 

twenty millions sterlinir, and that the other exports are of the 
value of at least fifteen millions sterling, whilst the imports 
amount to nearly four millions. 

As the city of New Orleans is nearly 1700 miles south of 
New York, it is not surprising that it rejoices in a semi-trop- 
ical climate. The squares are surrounded with lemon-trees, 
orange-groves, myrtle, and magnificent magnolias. Palmet- 
toes and peach-trees are found in all the gardens, and in the 
neighborhood are enormous cypresses, hung round with the 
everlasting Spanish moss. 

The streets of the extended city are different in character 
from the narrow chaussees of the old town, and the general 
rectangular arrangement common in the United States, Russia, 
and British Indian cantonments is followed as much as possi- 
ble. The markets are excellent, each municipality, or grand 
division, being provided with its own. They swarm with 
specimens of the composite races which inhabit the city, from 
the thorough-bred, woolly-headed negro, who is suspiciously 
like a native-born African, to tlie Creole who boasts that every 
drop of blood in his veins is purely French. 

I was struck by the absence of any whiles of the laboring 
classes, and when I inquired what had become of the men 
who work on the levee and at the cotton presses in competi- 
tion with the negroes, I was told they had been enlisted for 
the war. 

I forgot to mention that among the criminals in the prison 
there was one Mr. Bibb, a respectable citizen, wlio had a little 
aiFair of his own on Sunday morning. 

Mr. Bibb was coming from maiket, and had secured an 
early copy of a morning paper. Three citizens, anxious for 
news, or, as Bibb avows, for his watch and [)Ui-se, came up 
and insisted that he should read the paper for tliem. Bibb de- 
clined, whereupon the three citizens, in the full ex(;rcise of their 
rights as a majority, proceeded to coerce him ; but Bibb had a 
casual revolver in his pocket, and in a moment he shot one of 
his literary assailants dead, and wounded the two others 
severely, if not mortally. The paper which narrates the cir- 
cumstances, in stating that the successful combatant had been 
committed to prison, adds, " great sym[)athy is felt for Mr. 
Bibb." If the Southern minority is equally successful in its 
resistance io force majeure as this eminent citizen, the fate of 
the Confederacy cannot long be doubtful. 

June \st. The respectable people of the citv are menaced 
11* 



250 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

with two internal evils in consequence of the destitution 
caused by the sto|)i)age of trade with the North and with 
Europe. The municipal authorities, for want of funds, 
threaten to close the city schools, and to disband the police ; 
at the same time employers refuse to pay their workmen on 
the ground of inability. The British Consulate was thronged 
to-day by Irish, English, and Scotch, entreating to be sent 
North or to Europe. The stories told by some of these poor 
fellows were most pitiable, and were vouched for by facts and 
papers ; but Mr. Mure has no funds at his disposal to enable 
him to comply with their prayers. Nothing remains for them 
but to enlist. For the third or fourth time I heard cases of 
British subjects being forcibly earned off to fill the ranks of 
bo-called volunteer companies and regiments. In some instan- 
ces they have been knocked down, bound, and confined in bar- 
racks, till in despair they consented to serve. Those who^ 
have friends aware of their condition were relieved by the in- 
terference of the Consul ; but there are many, no doubt, 
thus coerced and placed in involuntary sei'vitude without his 
knowledge. Mr. Mure has acted with energy, judgment, and 
success on these occasions ; but I much wish he could have, 
from national sources, assisted the many distressed English 
subjects who thronged his office. 

The great commercial community of New Orleans, which 
now feels the pressure of tlie blockade, depends on the inter- 
ference of the European Powers next October. They have 
among them men who refuse to pay their debts to Northern 
houses, but they deny that they intend to repudiate, and 
promise to pay all who are not Black Republicans when the 
war is over. Repudiation is a word out of favor, as they feel 
the character of the Southern States and of Mr. Jefferson 
Davis himself has been much injured in P^urope by the breach 
of honesty and honor of which they liave been guilty ; but I 
am assured on all sides that every State will eventually re- 
deem all its obligations. Meantime, money here is fast van- 
ishing. Bills on New York are worth notliing, and bills on 
England are at 18 i)er cent, discount from the par value of 
gold ; but the people of this city will endure all tliis and much 
more to escape from the hated rule of the Yankees. 

Through the present gloom come the rays of a glorious fu- 
ture, which sliall see a grand slave confederacy enclosing the 
Gulf in its arms, and swelling to tlie sliores of tin; Potomac 
and Chesapeake, with the entire control of the Mississippi and 



SLAVERY AND COTTON. 251 

a monopoly of the great staples on which so much of the man- 
ufactures and commerce of England and France depend. 
Thty believe themselves, in fact, to be masters of the destiny 
of the world. Cotton is king — not alone king but czar ; and 
coupled with the gratification and profit to be derived from 
this mighty agency, they look forward with intense satisfac- 
tion to the complete humiliation of their hated enemies in the 
New England States, to the destruction of their usurious rival 
New York, and to the impoverishment and ruin of the States 
which have excited their enmity by personal liberty bills, and 
have outraged and insulted them by harboring abolitionists 
and an anti-slavery press. 

The abolitionists have said, " We will never rest till every 
slave is free in the United States." Men of larger views 
than those have declared, '' They will never rest from agita- 
tion until a man may as freely express his opinions, be they 
what they may, on slavery, or anything else, in the streets of 
Charleston or of New Orleans as in those of Boston or 
New York." " Our rights are guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion," exclaim the South. " The Constitution," retorts Wen- 
dell Phillips, "is a league with the devil, — a covenant with 
hell." 

The doctrine of State Rights has been consistently advo- 
cated not only by Southern statesmen, but by the great party 
who have ever maintained there was danger to liberty in the 
establishment of a strong central Government ; but the con- 
tending interests and opinions on both sides had hitherto been 
kept from open collision by artful compromises and by ingen- 
ious contrivances, which ceased with the election of Mr. Lin- 
coln. 

There was in the very corner-stone of the republican edi- 
fice a small fissure, which has been widening as the grand 
structure increased in height and weight. The early states- 
men and authors of the Republic knew of its existence, but 
left to posterity the duty of dealing with it and guarding 
against its consequences. Washington himself was perfectly 
aware of the danger ; and he looked forward to a duration 
of some sixty or seventy years only for the great fabric he 
contributed to erect. He was satisfied a crisis must come, 
when the States whom in his farewell address he warned 
against rivalry and faction would be unable to overcome tiie 
animosities excited by different interests, and the passions 
arising out of adverse institutions ; and now that the separa- 



252 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

tion has come, there is not, in the Constitution, or out of it, 
power to cement the broken fragments together. 

It is remarkable that in New Orleans, as in New York, the 
opinion of the most wealthy and intelligent men in the com- 
munity, so fur as I can judge, regards universal suffrage as 
organized confiscation, legalized violence and corruption, a 
mortal disease in the body politic. The other night, as I sat 
in the club-house, I heiird a discussion in reference to the 
operations of the Thugs in this city, a band of native-born 
Americans, who at election times were wont deliberately to 
shoot down Irish and German voters occupying positions as 
leaders of their mobs. These Thugs were only suppressed 
by an armed vigilance committee, of which a physician who 
sat at table was one of the members. 

Having made some purchases, and paid all my visits, I 
returned to prepare for my voyage up the Mississippi and 
visits to several planters on its banks — my first being to Gov- 
ernor Roman. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Up the Mississippi — Free negroes and English pohcy — Monotony 
of the river scenery — Visit to M. Roman — Slave quarters — A 
slave-dance — Slave-children — Negro hospital — General opin- 
ion — Confidence in Jefferson Davis. 

June 2d. My good friend the Consul was up early to see 
me off; and we drove together to the steamer J. L. Cotten. 
The people were going to mass as we passed through the 
streets ; and it was pitiable to see the children dressed out as 
Zouaves, with tin swords and all sorts of pseudo-military 
tomfoolery ; streets crowded with military companies ; bands 
playing on all sides. 

Before we left the door a poor black sailor came up to 
entreat Mr. Mure's interference. He had been sent by Mr. 
Magee, the Consul at Mobile, by land to New Orleans, in the 
hope that Mr. Mure would be able to procure him a free 
passage to some British port. He had served in the Royal 
Navy, and had received a wound in the Russian war. The 
moment he arrived in New Orleans he had been seized by the 
police. On his stating that he was a free-born British subject, 
the authorities ordered him to be taken to Mr. Mure ; he could 
not be allowed to go at liberty on account of his color ; tlie 
laws of the State forbade such dangerous experiments on the 
feelings of the slave population ; and if the Consul did not 
provide for him, he would be arrested and kept in prison, if 
no worse fate befell him. He was suffering from the effect 
of his wound, and was evidently in ill health. Mi'. Mure 
gave him a letter to the Sailors' Hospital, and some relief out 
of his own pocket. The police came as far as the door with 
him, and remained outside to arrest him if the Consul did not 
afford liim protection and provide for him, so that he should not 
be seen at large in the streets of the city. The other day a 
New Orleans privateer captured three northern brigs, on board 
which were ten free negroes. The captain handed them over 
to the Recorder, who applied to the Confederate States Mar- 



254 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

shal to take charge of them. The Marslial refused to receive 
them, whereupon the Recorder, as a magistrate and a good 
citizen, decided on keeping them in jail, as it would be a bad 
and dangerous policy to let them loose u{>on the community. 

I cannot help feeling that the position taken by England in 
reference to the question of her colored subjects is humiliating 
and degrading. People who live in London may esteem this 
question a light matter ; but it has not only been inconsistent 
with the national honor ; it has so degraded us in the opinion 
of Americans themselves, that they are encouraged to indulge 
in an insolent tone and in violent acts towards us, wiiich will 
some day leave Great Britain no alternative but an appeal to 
arms. Free colored persons are liable to seizure by tiie police, 
and to imprisonment, and may be sold into servitude under 
certain circumstances. 

On arriving at the steamer, I found a considerable party of 
citizens assembled to see off their friends. Governor Roman's 
son apologized to me for his inability to accompany me up the 
river, as he was going to the drill of his company of vohm- 
teers. Several other gentlemen were in uniform ; and when 
we had passed the houses of the city, I observed companies 
and troojis of horse exercising on both sides of the banks. 
On boartl were Mr. Burnside, a very extensive proprietor, 
and ]\Ir. Forstall, agent to Messrs. Baring, who claims descent 
from an Irish family near Rochestown, though he speaks our 
vernacular with dilliculty, and is much more French than 
British, lie is considered one of the ablest financiers and 
economists in the United States, and is certainly very ingen- 
ious, and well crammed with facts and ligures. 

Tiie as[)ect of New Orleans from the river is marred by the 
very poor houses lining the quays on the levee. AVide streets 
open on long vistas bordered by the most paltry little domi- 
ciles ; and the great conceptions of those wlio planned them, 
notwithstanding the prosperity of the city, have not been 
realised. 

As we were now floating nine feet higher than the level of 
the streets, we could look down upon a sea of flat roofs, and 
low wooden houses, painted white, pierced by the domes and 
spires of churches and public buildings. Grass was growing 
in many of these streets. At the other side of the river there 
is a smaller city of shingle-roofed houses, with h background 
of low timber. 

The steamer stopped continually at vainous points along the 



RIVER AT NEW OULEANS. 255 

levee, discharging commissariat stores, parcels, and passengers ; 
and after a time glided np into the open country, which spread 
beneath ns for several miles at eacli side of the banks, with a 
continuous background of forest. All this part of the river is 
called the Coast, and the country adjacent is remarkable for 
its fertility. The sugar plantations are bounded by lines 
drawn at rigiit angles to the banks of the river, and extending 
through the forest. The villas of the proprietors are thickly 
j)lanted in the midst of the green tields, with the usual porti- 
<u)es, pillars, verandiis, and green blinds ; and in the vicinity 
of each are rows of whitewashed huts, whi(^h are the slave 
quarters. These iields, level as a billiard table, are of the 
brightest green with crops of maize and sugar. 

But few persons were visible ; no*; a boat was to be seen ; 
and in tlu; course of sixty-two miles we met only two steamers. 
No shelving banks, no pebbly shoals, no rocky margins mark 
the course or diversify the outline of the Mississippi. The 
dead, uniform line of th«» levee compresses it at each side, and 
the turbid waters flow without let in a current of uniform 
breadth between the monotonous banks. The gables and 
summit of one house resemble those of another ; and but for 
the enormous scale of river and banks, and the black faces of 
the few negroes visible, a passenger might think he was on 
board a Dutch " treckshuyt." In 'fact, the Mississippi is a 
huge trench-like canal draining a continent. 

At half past three P. M. the steamer ran along-side the 
levee at the rigiit bank, and discharged me at '* Cahabanooze," 
in the Indian tongue, or " The duck.s' sleeping-place," togetluu* 
with an English merchant of New Orleans, M. La Ville 
Beaufevi'c, son-in-law of Governor Roman, and his wife. The 
Governor was waiting to receive us in the levee, and led the 
way through a gate in the paling which separated his ground 
from the roadside, towards the house, a substantial, square, 
two-storied mansion, with a veranda all round it, embosomed 
amid veniu-able trees, and surrounded by magnolias. By way 
of explaining the proximity of his house to the river, M. 
Roman told me that a considerable portion of the garden in 
front had a short time ago been carried otl^' by the Mississipjii ; 
nor is he at all sure the house itself will not share the same 
fate ; I ho{)e sincerely it may not. My quarters were in a 
detached house, com[)lete in itself, containing four bedrooms, 
library, and sitting-room, close to the mansion, and surrounded, 
like it, by tine trees. 



256 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

After we had sat for some time in the shade of the finest 
group, M. Roman, or, as he is called, the Governor — once a 
captain always a captain — asked me whether I would like to 
visit the slave quarters. I assented, and the Governor led the 
way to a high paling at the back of the house, inside which the 
scraping of fiddles was audible. As we passed the back of 
the mansion some young women flitted past in snow-white 
dresses, crinolines, pink sashes, and gaudily colored handker- 
cliiefs on their heads, who were, the Governor told me, the 
d(juicslic servants going off to a dance at the sugar-house ; he 
lets his slaves dance every Sunday. The American planters 
who are not Catholics, although they do not make the slaves 
work on Sunday except there is something to do, rarely grant 
them the indulgence of a dance, but a few permit them some 
hours of relaxation on each Saturday afternoon. 

We entered, by a wicket-gate, a square enclosure, lined with 
negro huts, built of wood, something like those which came 
from Malta to the Crimea in the early part of the campaign. 
Thej' are not furnished with windows — a wooden slide or 
grating admits all the air a negro desires. There is a par- 
tition dividing the hut into two departments, one of which is 
used as the sleeping-room, and contains a truckle bedstead and 
a mattress stuffed with cotton wool, or the hair-like fibres of 
dried Spanish moss. TheVardrobes of the iimiates hang from 
nails or pegs driven into the wall. The other I'oora is furnish- 
ed with a dresser, on which are arranged a few articles of 
crockery and kitchen utensils. Sometimes there is a table in 
addition to the plain wooden chairs, more or less dilapidated, 
constituting the furniture — a hearth, in connctction with a 
brick chimney outside the cottage, in which, hot as the day 
may be, some embers are sure to be found burning. The 
ground round the huts was covered with litter and dust, heaps 
of old shoes, fragments of clothing and feathers, amidst which 
pigs and poultry were recreating. Curs of low degree 
scampered in and out of the shade, or around two huge dogs, 
cJilnis da garde^ which are let loose at night to guard the pre- 
cincts ; belly deep, in a pool of stagnant water, thirty or forty 
mules wereswinking in the sun and enjoying their day of rest. 

The huts of the negroes engaged in the house are separated 
from those of the slaves devoted to field labor out of doors by 
a wooden paling, 1 looked into several of the houses, but 
somehow or other felt a repugnance, I dare say unjustifiable, 
to examine the i)enetralia, although invited — indeed, urged, 



SLAVE QUARTERS. 257 

to do so by the Governor. It was not that I expected to come 
upon anytliinji; dreadful, but I could not divest myself of some 
re,i;ard for the feelings of the poor creatures, slaves though 
they were, who stood by, shy, courtesying, and silent, as I broke 
in upon their family circle, felt their beds, and turned over 
their clothing. What right had I to do so ? 

Swarms of flies, tin cooking utensils attracting them by' 
r(!mnants of mola^sses, crockery, broken and old, on the dressers, 
more or less old clothes on the wall, these varied over and over 
again, were found in all the huts ; not a sign of ornament or 
decoration was visible ; not the most tawdry print, image of 
Virgin or Saviour ; not a prayer-book or printed volume. The 
slaves are not encouraged, or indeed permitted to read, and 
some communities of slave-owners punish heavily those at- 
tempting to instruct them. 

All the slaves seemed respectful to their master ; dressed in 
their best, they courtesied, and came up to shake hands with 
him and with me. Among them were some very old men and 
women, the canker-worms of the estate, who were dozing 
away into eternity, mindful only of hominy, and pig, and 
molasses. Two negro fiddlers were working their bows with 
energy in front of one of the huts, and a crowd of little children 
were listening to the music, together with a few grown-up 
persons of color, some of them from the adjoining plantations. 
The children are generally dressed in a little sack of coarse 
calico, which answers all reasonable purposes, even if it be not 
very clean. 

It might be an interesting subject of inquiry to the natural 
philosophers who follow crinology to determine why it is that 
the hair of the infant negro, or child, up to six or seven 
years of age, is generally a fine red russet, or even gamboge 
color, and gradually darkens into dull ebon. These little bod- 
ies were mostly large-stomached, well fed, and not less hap- 
py than free born-children, although much more valuable 
— for if once they get over juvenile dangei's, and advance 
towai'd nine or ten years of age, they rise in value to £100 or 
more, even in times when the market is low and money is 
scarce. 

The women were not very well-favored ; one yellow girl, 
with fair hair and light eyes, whose child was quite white, ex- 
cepted ; the men were disguised in such strangely-cut clothes, 
their hats and shoes and coats so wondei'fully made, that one 
could not tell what their figures were like. On all faces there 



258 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

was a gravity which must be the index to serene contentraent 
and perfect comfort ; for those who ought to know best declare 
they are the happiest race in the world. 

It struck me more and more, however, as I examined the 
expression of the faces of the slaves, that deep dejection is 
the prevailing, if not universal, characteristic of the race. 
Here there were abundant evidences that they were well 
treated ; they had good clotiiiiig of its kind, food, and a mas- 
ter who wittingly could do them no injustice, as he is, I am 
sure, incapable of it. Still, they all looked sad, and ever 
the old woman who boasted that she had held her old ownei 
in her arms when he was an infant, did not smile cheerfully, 
as the nurse at home would have done, at the sight of her an- 
cient charge. 

The negroes rear domestic birds of all kinds, and sell eggs 
and poultry to their masters. The money is spent in pur- 
chasing tobacco, molasses, clothes, and flour ; whiskey, their 
great delight, they must not have. Some seventy or eighty 
hands were quartered in this part of the estate. 

Before leaving the enclosure I was taken to the hospital, 
which was in charge of an old negress. The naked rooms 
contained several flock beds on rough stands, and five patients, 
three of whom were women. They sat listlessly on the beds, 
looking out into space ; no books to amuse them, no conversa- 
tion — nothing but their own dull thoughts, if they had any. 
They were suffering from pneumonia and swellings of the 
glands of the neck ; one man had fever. Their medical at- 
tendant visits them regularly, and each plantation has a prac- 
titioner, who is engaged by the term for his services. If the 
growth of sugar-cane, cotton, and corn, be the great end of 
man's mission on earth, and if all masters were like Governor 
Roman, slavery might be defended as a natural and innocuous 
institution. Sugar and cotton are, assuredly, two great agen- 
cies in this latter world. The older one got on well enough 
without them. 

The scraping of the fiddles attracted us to the sugar-house, 
where the juice of the cane is expressed, boiled, granulated, 
and prepared for the refinery, a large brick building, with a 
factory-looking chimney. In a space of the floor unoccupied 
by machinery some fifteen women and as many men were as- 
sembled, and four couples were dancing a kind of Irish jig 
to the music of the negro musicians — a double shuffle in a 
thumping ecstasy, with loose elbows, pendulous paws, angu- 



CREOLE PLANTERS. 259 

lated knees, heads thrown back, and backs arched inwards — 
a glazed eye, intense solemnity of mien. 

At this time of year there is no work done in the sugar- 
house, but when the crushing and boiling are going on, the 
labor is intensely trying, and the hands work in gangs night 
and day ; and, if the heat of the fires be superadded to the 
temperature in September, it may be conceded that nothing 
but " involuntary servitude " could go through the toil and 
suffering required to produce sugar. 

In the afternoon the Governor's son came in from the com- 
pany which he commands : his men are of the best families ia 
the country — planters and the like. We sauntei-ed about the 
gardens, diminished, as I have said, by a freak of the river. 
The French Creoles love gardens ; the Anglo-Saxons here- 
about do not much affect them, and cultivate their crops up to 
the very doorway. 

It was curious to observe so far away from France so many 
traces of the life of the old seigneur — the early meals, in 
which supper took the place of dinner — frugal simplicity — 
and yet a refinement of manner, kindliness and courtesy not 
to be exceeded. 

In the evening several officers of M. Alfred Roman's com- 
pany and neighboring planters dropped in, and we sat out in 
the twilight, under the trees in the veranda, illuminated by 
the flashing fireflies, and talking politics. I was struck by the 
profound silence which reigned all around us, except a low 
rushing sound, like that made by the wind blowing over corn- 
fields, which came from the mighty river before us. Nothing 
else was audible but the sound of our own voices aiid the dis- 
tant bark of a dog. After the steamer which bore us had 
passed on, I do not believe a single boat floated up or down 
the stream, and but one solitary planter, in his gig or buggy, 
traversed the road, which lay" between the garden palings and 
the bank of the great river. 

Our friends were all Creoles — that is, natives of Louisiana 
— of French or Spanish descent. They are kinder and bet- 
ter masters, according to universal re[)ute, than native Ameri- 
cans or Scotch ; but the New England Yankee is reputed to 
be the severest of all slave owners. All these gentlemen to a 
man are resolute that England must get their cotton or per- 
ish. She will take it, therefore, by force ; but as the South is 
determined never to let a Yankee vessel carry any of its prod- 
uce, a question has been raised by Monsieur Baroche, who is 



260 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

at present looking around him in New Orleans, which causes 
some difficulty to the astute and statistical Mr. Forstall. The 
French economist has calculated tliat if the Yankee vessels be 
excluded trom the carrying trade, the commercial marine of 
France and England together will be quite inadequate to carry 
Southern produce to P^urope. 

But Southern faith is indomitable. With their faithful ne- 
groes to raise their corn, sugar, and cotton, whilst their young 
men are at the wars ; with France and England to pour gold 
into their lap with which to purchase all they need in the con- 
test, they believe they can beat all the powers of the Northern 
world in arms. Illimitable fields, tilled by multitudinous ne- 
groes, open on their sight, and they behold the empires of 
Europe, with their manufactures, their industry, and their 
wealth, prostrate at the base of their throne, crying out, " Cot- 
ton ! More cotton ! That is all we ask ! " 

Ml*. Forstall maintains the South can raise an enormous 
revenue by a small direct taxation ; whilst the North, deprived 
of Southern resources, will refuse to pay taxes at all, and will 
accumulate enormous debts, inevitably leading to its financial 
ruin. He, like every Southern man I have as yet met, ex- 
presses unbounded confidence in Mr. Jefferson Davis. I am 
asked invarittbly, as the second question from a stranger, 
" Have you seen our President, sir ? don't you think him a 
very able man ? " This unanimity in the estimate of his char- 
acter, and universal confidence in the head of the State, will 
prove of incalculable value in a civil war. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Ride through the maize-fields — Sugar plantation ; negroes at work — 
Use of the lash — Feeling towards France — Silence of the coun- 
try — Negroes and dogs — Theory of slavery — Physical forma- 
tion of the negro — The defence of slavery — The masses for ne- 
gro souls — Convent of the Sacre' Coeur — Ferry house — A large 
land-owner. 

June 3d. — At five o'clock this morning, having been awak- 
ened an Iiour earlier by a wonderful chorus of riotous mock- 
ing-birds, my old negro attendant brought in my bath of Mis- 
sissippi water, which, Nile-like, casts down a strong deposit, 
and becomes as clear, if not so sweet, after standing. " Le 
seigneur vous attend ; " and already I saw, outside my window, 
the Governor mounted on a stout cob, and a nice chestnut 
horse waiting, led by a slave. Early as it was, the sun felt 
excessively hot, and I envied the Governor his slouched hat 
as we rode through the fields, crisp with dew. In a few min- 
utes our horses were traversing narrow alleys between the tall 
fields of maize, which rose far above our heads. This corn, 
as it is called, is the principal food of the negroes ; and every 
planter lays down a sufficient quantity to afford him, on an 
average, a supply all the year round. Outside this spread vast 
fields, hedgeless, wall-less, and unfenced, where the green cane 
was just learning to wave its long shoots in the wind — a lake 
of bright green sugar-sprouts, along the margin of which, in 
the distance, rose an unbroken boundary of forest, two miles 
in depth, up to the swampy morass, all to be cleared and turned 
into arable land in process of time. From the river front to 
this forest, the fields of I'ich loam, unfathomable, and yielding 
from one to one and a iialf hogsheads of sugar per acre under 
cultivation, extend for a mile and a half in depth. In the 
midst of this expanse white dots were visible like Sowers seen 
on the early march in Indian fields, many a time and oft. 
Those are the gangs of hands at work — we will see what 
they are at presently. Tiiis little reminiscence of Indian life 
was further heightened by the negroes who ran beside us to 



262 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

whisk flies from the horses, and to open the gates in the plan- 
tation boundary. When the Indian corn is not good, peas are 
sowed, aherMat(?ly, between the stalks, and are considered to 
be of much benctil ; and when the cane is bad, corn is sov/ed 
with it, for the same object. Before we came up to the gangs 
we passed a cart on the road containing a large cask, a bucket 
full of molasses, a pail of hominy, or boiled Indian corn, and 
a quantity of tin pannikins. The cask contained water for 
the negroes, and the other vessels held the materials for their 
breakfast ; in addition to which, they generally have each a dried 
fish. The food was ample, and looked wholesome ; such as 
any laboring man would be well content with. Passing along 
through maize on one side, and cane at another, we arrived at 
last at a patch of ground where thirty-six men and women 
were hoeing. ^ 

Three gangs of negroes were at work : one gang of men, 
with twenty mules and ploughs, was engaged in running through 
the furrows between the canes, cutting up the weeds, and clear- 
ing away tlie grass, whicli is the enemy of the growing shoot. 
Tlie mules are of a fine, large, good-tempered kind, and under- 
stand their work almost as well as the drivers, who are usually 
the moi'e intelligent hands on the plantation. The overseer, a 
sharp-looking creole, on a lanky pony, whip in hand, superin- 
tended their labors, and, after a salutation to the Governor, to 
whom he made some remarks on the condition of the crops, 
rode off to another part of the farm. With the exception of 
crying to their nmles, the negroes kept silence at their work. 

Another gang consisted of forty men, who were hoeing out 
the grass in Indian corn. The tiiird gang, of thirty-jix wo- 
men, were engaged in hoeing out cane. Their clothing seemed 
heavy for the chmate ; their shoes, ponderous and ill-made, had 
worn away the feet of their tliick stockings, which hung in 
fringes over the u|)per leathers. Coarse straw hats and bright 
cotton handkerchiefs protected their heads from the sun. The 
silence winch I have already alluded to, prevailed among 
these gangs also — not a sound could be heard but the blows 
of the hoe on the heavy clods. In the rear of each gang 
stood a black overseer, with a heavy-thonged whip over his 
slioulder. If " Alcibiade " or '' Pompee " were called out, he 
came with outstretched hand to ask " How do you do," and 
then returned to his labor ; but the ladies were coy, and scarce- 
ly looked up from under their flapping c/u^/>ea^^x </e jyatV/e at 
their visitors. 



HEAT AND COLD. '263 

Those who are motliers leave their cliihh'en in the charge 
of certain old women, unfit for anything else, and " suckers," 
as they are called, are permitted to go home, at ap])ointed pe- 
riods in the day, to give the infants the breast. The overseers 
have power to give ten lashes ; but heavier piniishment ought 
to be reported to the Governor ; however, it is not likely a 
good overseer would be checked, in any way, by his master. 
The anxieties attending the cultivation of sugar are great, and 
so much depends ujwn the judicious employment of labor, it 
is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of experi- 
ence in directing it, and of power to insist on its application. 
When the frost comes, the cane is rendered worthless — one 
touch destroys the sugar. But if frost is the en(!my of the 
white ])lanter, the sun is scarcely the friend of the black man. 
The sun condemns him to slavery, because it is the heat which 
is the barrier to the white man's labor. The Governor told 
me that, in August, when the crops are close, thick-set, and 
high, and the vertical sun beats down on the hiborers, nothing 
but a black skin and head covered with wool can enable a man 
to walk out in the open field and live. 

We returned to the house in time for breakfast, for which 
our early cup of coffee and biscuit and the ride had been good 
preparation. Here was old France again. One might 
imagine a lord of the seventeenth century in his hall, but for 
the black faces of the servitors and the strange dishes of 
tropical origin. There wa^ the old French abundance, the 
numerous dishes and efflorescence of napkins, and the long- 
necked bottles of Bordeaux, with a steady current of ])leasant 
small talk. J saw some numbers of a paper called " La 
Misachibee'' which was the primitive Indian name of the grand 
river, not improved by the addition of sibilant Anglo-Saxon 
syllables. 

Tlie Americans, not unmindful of the aid to which, at the 
end of the War of Independence, their efforts were merely 
auxiliary, delight, even in the North, to exalt France above 
her ancient rival : but, as if to show the innate dissimilarity of 
the two races, the French Creoles exhibit towards the New 
Englanders and the North an animosity, mingled with con- 
tempt, which argues badly for a future amalgamation or 
reunion. As the South Carolinians declare, they would rather 
return to their allegiance under the English monarchy, so the 
Louisianians, although they have no sentiment in common 
with the people of republican and imperial France, assert 



264 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

they would far sooner seek a connection with the old country 
than siihniit to tlu^ yoke of the Yankees. 

After br(^:ikfast, the Governor drove out by the ever-silent 
levee for some miles, passiiiji; (estate after estate, where "jfrove 
nodded to <j;rove, eacli alley saw its brother. One could form 
no idea, from the small limited frontage of these plantations, 
that the pro[)rietors were men of many thousands a year, 
because the estates extend on an average for three or tour 
miles back to the fon^st. The absence of lunnan beings on the 
road was a feature which impress<;d one more and more. But 
for the tall ehinmeys of the factories and the sugar-Iiouses, one 
might believe that these villas had been erected by some 
pleasure-loving people who had all fled from the river banks 
for fear of pestilence. The gangs of negroes at work were 
hidden in the deep corn, and their quarters were silent and 
deserled. We nu't but one planter, in his gig, until we arrived 
at the estate of Monsieur Potior, tlu^ Governor's brother-in-law. 
The proi)rietor was at home, and received us very kindly, 
though surtering from tlu^ eflc.ctsof a recent domestic calamity. 
He is a grave, earnest man with a face like Jerome Bonaparte, 
and a most devout Callioiic; and any man more inilit to \\\v in 
any sort of cojnnnuuly with New England Puritans one cannot 
well conceives for ecpial intensity of pnri)ose and sincerity of 
conviction on their part could only lead them to mortal strife. 
His house was like a French chateau erected under tropical 
inlluences, and he led us through a handsome garden laid out , 
with hot-houses, conservatories, orange-trees, and date-palms, 
and ponds full of the magniUcenl Victoria Regia in Hovver. 
We visited his relining factories and mills, but tlu' heat from the 
boilers, which seemed too nuich ^'\•en for the all-but-nakeil ne- 
groes who were at work, did not temj)t us to make a very long 
Hojourn inside. The ebony ("aces and jjolished black backs of 
the slaves were streaming with perspiration as they toiled over 
boilers, vat, and ctMitrifugal driers. The good reliner was not 
gaining mucii money at present, for sugar has been rapidly fill- 
ing in New Orleans, and the oOt),()(H) l)arrels produced ainmal- 
ly in the South will fall slK)rt in the yield of prolits, which on 
an averagi^ may be taken at £11 a hogshead, without countini^ 
the molasses for the planter. With a most perfect (iiith in 
States' Rights, he seemed to combine either inditference or ig- 
norance in respect to the power anil determination of the North 
to resist secession to the last. All the planters hereabouts ■ 
have sowed an unusual quantity of Indian coi-n, to have food for * 



THE NEGRO QUESTION. 265 

the negroes if the war lasts, without any distress from inland 
or sea bloc-kade. The absurdity of supposing that a blockade 
can injure them in the way of supply is a favorite theme to 
descant upon. Tliey uiay find out, however, that it is no con- 
temptible means of warfare. 

At night, there are regular patrols and watchmen, who look 
after the levee and the negroes. A number of dogs are also 
loosed, but I am assured tliat the creatures do not tear the ne- 
groes ; they are taught " merely " to catch and mumble them, 
to treat them as a well-broken retriever uses a wounded wild 
duck. 

At six, A. M., Moise came to ask me if I should like a glass 
of absinthe, or anything stomachic. At breakfast was Doctor 
La[H)rte, formerly a member of the Legislative Assembly of 
France, who was exiled by Louis Napoleon ; in other words, lie 
was ordered to give in iiis adhesion to the new regime, or to take 
a passport for abroad. He preferred the latter coiu'se, and now, 
true Frenchman, liuding the Kin[)eror has aggrandized Franco 
and added to her military reputation, he admires the man on 
wliom but a few years ago he lavislied the bitterest hate. 

Tile carriage is reaily, and the word farewell is spoken at 
last. M. Alfred Roman, my companion, has travelled in Eu- 
ro[)e, and learned philosophy ; is not so orthodox as many of 
the gentlemen I have met wiio indulge in ingenious iiypotheses 
to comfort the consciences of the anthropo-proprielors. The ne- 
gro skull won't hold as many ounces of shot as the white man's. 
Potent proof that the white man has a right to sell and to own 
the creature ! He is plantigrade, and curved as to the tibia ! 
Cogent demonstration that he was made expressly to work for 
the arch-tooted, straight-tibiaed Caucasian. He has a rete 
mucosum and a colored pigment ! Surely he cannot have a 
soul of the same color as tiiat of an Italian or a S[)aniard, far 
less of a flaxen-haired Saxon ! See these peculiarities in the 
frontal sinus — in sinciput or occiput ! Can you doubt that tiie 
being with a head of that shape was made only to till, lioe, and 
dig ibr another race 'i Besides, the Bible says that he is a son 
of Ham, and prophecy must be carried out in the ric(!-swamps, 
sugar-canes, and maize-fields of the Southern Confederation. 
It is flat blasphemy to set yourself against it. Our Saviour 
sanctions slavery because he does not say a word against it, and 
it is very likely that St. Paul was a slave-owner. Had cotton 
and sugar been known, the a[K)slle niigiit have been a pUinter ! 
Furthermore, the negro is civilized by being carried away fiom 
12 



268 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Africa and set to work, instead of idling in native inutility. 
Wiiat hope is tliere of Cln-istianizing the African races, except 
by the agency of the apostles from New Orleans, Mobile, or 
Charleston, who sing the sweet songs of Zion witli such vehe- 
menc(% and clamor so fervently for baptism in the waters of 
the " Jawdam " ? 

If these high physical, metaphysical, moral and religious, 
reasonings do not satisfy you, and you are bold enough to 
venture still to be unconvinced and to say so, then I advise 
you not to come within ri^ach of a mass meeting of our citi- 
zens, who may be able to find a rope and a tree in the neigh- 
borhood. 

As -we jog along in an easy rolling carriage drawn by a 
pair of stout horses, a number of white people meet us com- 
ing from the Catholic chapel of the parish, where they h:ul 
been attending the service for the repose of the soul of a lady 
much beloved in the neigliborhood. The black people must 
be supposed to liave very happy souls, or to be as utterly lost 
as Mr. Siiandy's homuncuhis was under certain circumstances, 
for I have failed to find that any such services are ever con- 
sidered necessary in their case, although they may have been 
v(!ry good — or, where the service would be most desirable — 
very bad Catholics. The dead, leaden uniformity of the 
scenery forced one to converse, in order to escape profound 
melancholy : the levee on the right hand, above which nothing 
was visible but the sky ; on the left plantations with cypress 
fences, whitewashed and pointed wooden gates leading to the 
planters' houses, and rugged gardens surrounded with shrubs, 
through which could be seen the slave quarters. Men making 
eighty or ninety hogsheads of sugar in a year lived in most 
wretched tumble-down wooden liouses not much larger than 
ox sheds. 

As we drove on, the storm gathered overhead, and the rain 
fell in torrents — the Mississippi flowed lifelessly by — not 
a boat on its broad surface. 

At last we reached Governor Manning's place, and went to 
the house of the overseer, a large heavy-eyed old man. 

" This rain will do good to the corn," said the overseer. 
" The niggers has had sceerce nothin' to do leetly, as they 
'eve clearied out the fields pretty well." 

At the ferry-house I was attended by one stout young slave, 
who was to row me over. Two fiat-bottomed skiffs lay on the 
bank. The negro groped under the shed, and pulled out a 



THE NEGRO FERRYMAN. 267 

piece of wood like a large spatula, some four feet long, and a 
small round pole a little longer. '"What are those?" quotii I. 
" Dem's oars, Massa," was my sable ferryman's brisk reply. 
" I'm very sure they are not ; if they were spliced they miglit 
make an oar between them." " Golly, and dat's the trute, 
IMassa." " Then go and get oars, will you ?" Wliile he was 
hunting about we entered tlie shed at the feiTy for shelter 
from the rain. We found " a solitary woman sitting " smok- 
ing a pipe by the ashes on the hearth, blear-eyed, low-browed 
anil morose — young as she was. She never said a word nor 
moved as we came in, sat and smoked, and looked through her 
gummy eyes at chickens about the size of sparrows, and at a 
cat not larger than a rat which ran about on the dirty floor. 
A little girl, some four years of age, not overdressed — in- 
deed, half-naked, "not to put too fine a point upon it" — 
crawled out from under the bed, where she had hid on our 
approacli. As slie seemed incapable of appreciating the use 
of a small piece of silver presented to her — liaving no pre- 
cise ideas in coinage or toffy — her parent took the obolus in 
charge, with unmistakable decision ; but still the lady would 
not stir a step to aid our guide, who now insisted on the " key 
ov de oar-house." The little thing sidled off and hunted it out 
from the top of the bedstead, and when it was found, and the 
boat was ready, I was not sorry to quit the company of the 
silent woman in black. The boatman pushed his skitf, in shape 
a snuffer-dish, some ten feet long and a foot deep, into the 
water — there was a good deal of rain in it. I got in too, 
and the conscious waters immediately began vigorously spurt- 
ing through the cotton wadding wherewith the craft was 
calked. Had we gone out into the stream we should have 
had a swim for it, and they do say that the Mississipi)i is the 
most dangerous river in the known world, for that healtliful 
exercise. " Why ! deuce take you " (I said at least that, in 
ray wrath), " don't you see the boat is leaky ? " " See it now 
for true, Massa. Nobody able to tell dat till Massa get in 
thougli." Another skiff proved to be more stanch. 1 bade 
good-by to my friend Roman, and sat down in my boat, which 
was forced by the negro against the stream close to the bank, 
in order to get a good start across to the other side. The vi(^w 
from my lonely position was curious, but not at all picturesque. 
The world was bounded on both sides by a liigli bank, which 
constricted tlie broad Tiver, just as if one were sailing down 
an open sewer of enormous length and breadth. Above the 



268 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

bank rose the tops of tall trees and the chimneys of sugar- 
houses, and that was all to be seen save the sky. 

A quarter of an hour brought us to "the levee on the other 
side. I ascended the bank, and across the road, directly in 
front appeared a carriage gateway and wickets of wood, paint- 
ed white, in p line of park palings of the same material, which 
extended up <aul down the road far as the eye could see, and 
guarded wide-spread fields of maize and sugar-cane. An 
avenue lined with trees, with branches close set, drooping and 
overarching a walk paved vvitli red brick, led to the house, the 
porch of which was visible at the extremity of the lawn, with 
clustering flowers, rose, jasmine, and ci'eepers, clinging to the 
pillars supporting the veranda. The view from the belvedere 
on the roof was one of the most striking of its kind in the 
world. 

. If an English agriculturist could see six thousand acres of 
the finest land in one field, unbroken by hedge or boundary, 
and covered with the most magnificent crops of tasselling Indian 
corn and sprouting sugar-cane, as level as a billiard-table, he 
would surely doubt his senses. But here is literally such a sight 
— six thousand acres, better tilled than the finest patch in all the 
Lothians, green as Meath pastui'es, which can be turned up for a 
hundred years to come without requiring maiuu'e, of depth prac- 
tically unlimited, and yielding an average profit on what is sold 
off it of at least £20 an acre, at the old prices and usual yield of 
sugar. Rising up in the midst of the verdure are the white 
lines of the negro cottages and the plantation offices and sugar- 
houses, which look like large public edifices in the distance. 
My host was not ostentatiously proud in telling me that, in the 
year 1857, he had purchased this estate for £300,000 and an 
adjacent property, of 8000 acres, for £150,000, and that he 
had left Beltiist in early youth, poor and unfriended, to seek 
his fortune, and indeed scarcely knowing what fortune meant, 
in the New World. In lact, he had invested in these purchases 
the geater part, but not all, of the profits arising from tiie 
business in New Orleans, which he hdierited from his master; 
of which there still remained a solid nucleus in the shape of a 
great woollen magazine and country house. He is not yet 
fifty years of age, and his coTifidence in the great future of 
sugar induced him to embark this enormous fortune in an 
estate which the blockade has stricken with paralysis. 

I cannot doubt, however, that he regrets he did not invest 
his money in a certain great estate in the North of Ireland, 



A COAST PLANTATION. 269 

which he had nearly decided on buying ; and, had he done 
so, he would now be in the position to which his unaffected 
good sense, modesty, kindliness, and benevolence, always add- 
ing the rental, entitle him. Six thousand acres on this one 
estate all covered with sugar-cane, and 16,000 acres more of 
Indian corn, to feed the slaves ; — these were great posses- 
sions, but not less than 18,000 acres still remained, covered 
with brake and forest and swampy, to be reclaimed and turned 
into gold. As easy to persuade the owner of such wealth 
that slavery is indefensible as to have convinced the Norman 
baron that the Saxon churl who tilled his lands ought to be 
his equal. 

I found Mr. "Ward and a few merchants from New Orleans 
in possession of the bachelor's house. The service was per- 
formed by slaves, and the order and regularity of the attend- 
ants were worthy of a well-regulated English mansion. In 
Southern houses along the coast, as the Mississippi above 
New Orleans is termed, beef and mutton are rarely met with, 
and the more seldom the better. Fisli, also, is scarce, but 
turkeys, geese, poultry, and preparations of pig, excellent 
vegetables, and wine of the best quality, render the absence 
of the accustomed dishes little to be regretted. 

The silence which struck me at Governor Roman's is not 
broken at Mr. Burnside's ; and when the last thrill of the 
mocking-bird's song has died out thi-ough the grove, a stillness 
of Avernian profundity settles on hut, field, and river. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Negroes — Sugar-cane plantations — The negro and cheap labor — 
Mortality of blacks and whites — Irisli labor in Louisiana — A 
sugar-house — Negro children — Want of education — Negro diet 
— Negro hospital — Spirits in the morning — Breakfast — More 
slaves — Creole planters. 

June bth. — The smart negro who waited on me this morn- 
ing spoke EngHsh. I asked him if he knew how to read and 
write. — " We must not do that, sir." " Where were you 
born? " — "I were raised on the plantation, Massa, but I have 
been to New Orleens ; " and then he added, with an air of 
pride, "I s'pose, sir, Massa Burnside not take less than 1500 
dolhirs for me." Down-stairs to breakfast, the luxuries of 
which are fish, prawns, and red meat which has been sent for 
to Donaldsonville by boat rowed by an old negro. Breakfast 
over, I walked down to the yard, where the horses were wait- 
ing, and proceeded to visit the saccharine principality. Mr. 
Seal, the overseer of this portion of the estate, was my guide, 
if not philosopher and friend. Our road lay through a lane 
formed by a cart track, between fields of Indian corn just be- 
ginning to flower — as it is called technically, to "tassel" — 
and sugar-cane. There were stalks of the former twelve or 
fifteen feet in height, with three or four ears each, round which 
the pea twined in leafy masses. The maize atFords food to 
the negro, and the husks are eaten by the horses and mules, 
which also fatten on the peas in rolling time. 

The wealth of the land is inexhaustible : all the soil requires 
is an alternation of maize and cane ; and the latter, when cut 
in the stalk, called " ratoons," at the end of the year, produces 
a fresh crop, yielding excellent sugar. The cane is grown 
from stalks which are laid in pits during the winter till the 
ground has been ploughed, when each piece of cane is laid 
longitudinally on the ridge and covered with earth, and from 
each joint of the stalk springs forth a separate sprout when 
the crop begins to grow. At present the sugar-cane is waiting 



SLAVERY AND FIELD LABOR. 271 

for its full development, but the negro labor around its stem 
has ceased. It is planted in long continuous furrows, and 
although the palm-like tops have not yet united in a uniform 
arch over the six feet which separates row from row, the stallcs 
are liigher than a man. Tiie plantation is pierced with wagon 
roads, for the purpose of conveying the cane to the sugar- 
mills, and these again are intersected by and run parallel with 
drains and ditches, poi'tions of the great system of irrigation 
and drainage, in connection with a canal to carry off the sur- 
plus water to a bayou. The extent of these works may be 
estimated by the fact that there are thirty miles of road and 
twenty miles of open deep drainage through the estate, and 
that the main canal is fifteen feet wide, and at present lour 
feet deep ; but in the midst of this waste of plenty and wealth, 
where are the human beings who produce both ? One must 
go far to discover them ; they are buried in sugar and in 
maize, or hidden in negro quarters. In truth, there is no trace 
of them, over all this expanse of land, unless one knows where 
to seek ; no " ploughboy whistles o'er the lea ;" no rustic stands 
to do his own work ; but the gang is moved off in silence from 
point to point, like a corps d'armee of some despotic emperor 
manoeuvring in the battle-field. 

Admitting everything that can be said, I am the more per- 
suaded from what I see, that the real foundation of slavery in 
the Southern States lies in the power of obtaining labor at will 
at a rate which cannot be controlled by any combination of 
the laboi'ers. Granting the heat and the malaria, it is not for 
a moment to be argued that planters could not find white men 
to do their work if they would pay them for the risk. A 
negro, it is true, bears heat well, and can toil under the blaz- 
ing sun of Louisiana, in the stifling air between the thick-set 
sugar-canes; but the Irishman who is employed in the stoke- 
hole of a steamer is exposed to a higher tempei-ature and 
physical exertion even moi'e arduous. Tiie Irish laborer can, 
liowever, set a value on his work ; the African slave can only 
determine the amount of work to be got from him by the ex- 
haustion of his powers. Again, the indigo planter in India, 
out from morn till night amidst his ryots, or the sportsman 
toiling under the midday sun through swamp and jungle, 
proves that the white man can endure the utmost power of the 
Iiottest sun in the world as well as the native. More than 
that, the white man seems to be exempt from the inflanunatory 
disease, pneumonia, and attacks of the mucous membrane and 



272 MY DIAUY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

respiratory organs to which the blacks are subject ; and if the 
statistics of negro mortality were rigidly examined, I doubt 
tliut Ihey would exhibit as large a proportion of mortality and 
sickness as would be found amongst gangs of white men under 
similar circumstances. But the slave is subjected to rigid con- 
trol ; he is deprived of stimulating drinks in which the free 
white laborer would indulge ; and he is obliged to support life 
upon an antipldogistic diet, which gives him, however, suf- 
ficient strength to execute his daily task. 

It is in the su|)posed clieapness of slave labor and its profit- 
i.ble adaptation in the production of Southern croj)s, that the 
whole gist and essence of the question really lie. The planter 
can get from the labor of a slave for whom he has paid £200, 
a sum of money which will enable him to use up that slave in 
comparatively a few years of his life, whilst he would have to 
pay to the white laborer a sum that would be a great apparent 
diminution of his profits, for the same amount of work. It is 
calculated that each field-hand, as an able-bodied negro is 
called, yields seven hogsheads of sugar a year, which, at the 
rate of fourpence a pound, at an average of a hogshead an 
acre, would produce to the planter £140 for every slave. 
This is wonderful interest on the plantei-'s money ; but he 
sometimes gets two hogsheads an acre, and even as many as 
three hogsheads have been produced in good years on the best 
lands ; in other words, two and a quarter tons of sugar and 
refuse stuff, called " bagasse," have been obtained from an 
acre of cane. Not one planter of the many I have asked 
has ever given an estimate of the annual cost of a slave's 
maintenance ; the idea of calculating it never comes into tiieir 
heads. 

Much depends upon the period at which frost sets in ; and 
if the planters can escape till January without any cold to nip 
the juices and the cane, their crop is increased in value each 
day ; but it is not till October they can begin to send cane to 
the mill, in average seasons ; and if the frost does not come 
till December, they may count upon the fair average of a hogs- 
Iiead of 1200 pounds of sugar to every acre. 

The labor of ditching, trenching, cleaning tl>e waste lands, 
and hewing down the forests, is generally done by Irish 
laborers, who travel about the country under contractors, or 
are engaged by resident gangsmen for the task. Mr. Seal 
lamented the high prices of this work ; but then, as he said, 
*' It was much better to have Irish to do it, who cost nothing 



PERQUISITES OF SLAVES. 273 

to the i)lanter, if they died, than to use up good field-hands in 
such severe employment." There is a wonderiul mine of 
truth i:i tliis observation. Heaven knows how many poor Hi- 
bernians have been consum(;d and buried in these Louisianian 
swamps, leaving their earnings to the dramshop-keeper and 
the contractor, and the results of their toil to the planter. 
Tliis estate derives its name from an Indian tribe called 
Houmas; and wlien Mr. Burnside purchased it for £^00, 000, 
h<; received in the first year £G3,000 as the clear value of the 
crops on his investment. 

The fii-st place 1 visited with the overseer was a new sugar- 
house, which negro carpenters and masons were engaged in 
(.•reeling. It would have been amusing, had not the subject 
been so grave, to hear the overseer's praises of the intelligence 
and skill of these workmen, and his boast that they did all the 
work of skilled laborers on the estate, and then to listen to 
him, in a few minutes, expatiating on the utter helplessness 
and ignorance of the black race, their incapacity to do any 
good, or even to take care of themselves. 

There are four sugar-houses on this portion of Mr. Burn- 
side's estate, consisting of grinding-mills, boiling-houses, and 
crystallizing sheds. 

The sugar-house is the capital of the negro quarters, and 
to each of them is attached an enclosure, in whi(;h there is a 
double row of single-storied wooden eottag(!s, divided into two 
or four rooms. An avenue of trees runs down the centre; of 
the negro street, and behind each hut are rude poultry- 
hutches, which, witii geese and turkeys, and a few pigs, form 
the perquisites of the slaves, and the sole source from 
which they derive their acquaintance vvith currency. Their 
terms are stri(;tly cash. An old negro brougiit up some ducks 
to Mr. Burnside last night, and offered the lot of six for three 
dollars. " Veiy well, Louis ; if you come to-morrow, I'll pay 
you." " No, massa ; me want de money now." " But won't 
you give me credit, Louis? Don't you think I'll pay the 
three dollars?" "Oh, pay some day, massa, sure enough. 
Massa good to pay de tree dollar ; but this nigger want money 
now to buy food and things ibr him leetle fanily. They will 
trust massa at Donaldsville, but they won't trust this nigger." 
I was told that a thrifty negro will sometimes make ten or 
twelve pounds a year from his corn and poultry ; but he can 
have no inducement to hoard ; for whatever is his, as well as 
himself, belongs to his master. 
12* 



274 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Mr. Seal conducted me to a kind of forciing-house, where 
the young negroes ar(i kept in cliarge of certain old crones 
too old for work, whilst their parents are away in the cane 
and Indian corn. A host of children of both sexes were 
seated in the veranda of a large wooden shed, or playing 
around it, veiy happily and noisily. I was glad to see the 
boys and girls of nin(>, ten, and eleven years of age were at 
this season, at all events, exempted from the cruel fate which 
befalls poor children of their age in the mining and manu- 
facturing districts of England. At the sight of the overseer, 
the little ones came forward in tumultuous glee, babbling out, 
"• Massa Seal," tuid evidently pleased to see him. 

As a jolly agriculturist looks at his yearlings or young 
beeves, the kindly overseer, lolling in his saddle, pointed with 
his whip to the glistening fat ribs and corpulent paunches of 
his woolly -headed flock. " There's not a plantation in the 
State," quoth he, " can show such a lot of young niggers. 
The way to get them right is not to work the mothers too 
hard when they are near tluiir time ; to give them plenty to 
eat, and not to send them to the fields too soon." lie told me 
the inci'ease was about five per cent, per annum. The chil- 
dren were quite sufficiently clad, ran about round us, patted the 
horses, felt our legs, tried to climb up on the stirrup, and 
twinkled their black and ochrey eyes at Massa Seal. Some 
were exceedingly fair ; and Mr. Seal, observing that my eye 
followed these, murmured something about the overseers be- 
fore Mr. Burnside's time being rather a bad lot. He talked 
about their color and complexion quite openly ; nor did it 
seem to strike him that there was any particular turpitude 
in the white man who had left his offspring as slaves on tha 
plantation. 

A tall, well-built lad of some nine or ten years stood by 
me, looking curiously into my face. "What is your name ?" 
said 1. " George," he replied. " Do you know how to read 
or write?" He evidently did not understand the question. 
" Do you go to church or chapel ? " A dubious shake of the 
head. "Did you ever hear of our Saviour?" At this point 
Mr. Seal interposed, and said, "J think we had better go on, 
as the sun is getting hot," and so we rode gently through the 
little ones ; and when we had got some distance he said, rather 
apologetically, "We don't think it right to put these thing.s 
into their heads so young, it only disturbs their minds, and 
leads them astray." 



NEGRO HOSPITALS. 275 

Now, in this one quarter there were no less than eij^hty 
chil(h-en, some twelve and some even fourteen years of aj^e. 
No education — no God — their whole lite — food and play, 
to strengtlien their museles and lit tlicni for the work of a 
slave. " And when they die ? " " Well," said Mr. Seal, 
" they are buried in that lield there by their own [)eo|)le, and 
some of them have a sort of prayers ov(!r them, I believe." 
The overseer, it is certain, had no fastidious notions about 
slavery ; it was to him the ri<;;ht tliiiiji; in the rij^ht jjlace, and 
hi< simimniH honuni was a lii;;h |)ii((! for sugar, a <^uw\ cioj), 
and a healthy plantation. Nay, I Jim sure I would not 
wrong him if I said Ik; could see no impropriety in rutuiiug a 
good cargo of regular black slaves, wlio might clear the great 
backwood and swampy uudcirgrowth, which was now (txhaust- 
ing the eiK^rgies of Ids field-hands, in the absence of Irish 
navvies. 

Ka(;h negro gets live pounds of pork a wc^ik, and as much 
Indian corn bread as lie can eat, with a portion of" molasses, 
and occasionally they have lisli for breakfast. All the car- 
penters' and smiths' work, the erc^ction of sheds, repairing of 
carts and ploughs, and the baking of bricks for the farm 
buildings, are done on the estate by the slaves. The ma- 
chinery comes from the manufacturing cities of the North ; 
but great etfijrts are innde to pro(!ure it from New Orleans, 
where factories have been already established. On the bor- 
ders of the forest the ncigroes are allowed to plant corn for 
their own use, and sometimes they have an overplus, which 
they sell to their mastei's. Except when then; is any harvest 
pressure on their hands, they have from noon on Saturday till 
dawn on Monday morning to do as they please, but tiiey must 
not stir off the j)larilation on the road, uidess with special 
])ermit, which is randy granted. 

Th(!r(! is an hospital on the estate, and even shrewd Mr. 
S(;al did not perceive the conclusion that was to be drawn 
from his testimony to its ex<;ell(^nt arrang(!tnents. " Once a 
nigger gets in tlua-e, he'd like to live there, for the rest of his 
life." But are they not the happiest, most cont<;nted people 
in the world — at any r;it(!, when they are in hospital? I 
declare that to me the more orderly, nnUhodical, and perfect 
the arrangements for economizing slave labor — regulating 
slaves — are, the more hateful and odious does slavery b(!- 
corae. I would much rather be the animated human chattel 
of a Turk, Egyptian, Spaniard, or French Creole, than the 



276 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

laboring beast of a Yankee or of a New England capital- 
ist. 

When I returned back to the house I found my friends en- 
joying a quiet siesta, and the rest of the afternoon was de- 
voted to idleness, not at all disagreeable with a thermometer 
worthy of Agra. Even the mocking-birds were roasted into 
silence, and the bird which answers to our rook or crow sat 
on the under branches of the trees, gaping for air with his bill 
wide open. It must be hot indeed when the mocking-bird 
loses his activity. There is one, with its nest in a rose-bush 
trailed along the veranda under my window, which now sits over 
its young ones with outspread wings, as if to protect them from 
being baked ; and it is so courageous and affectionate, that 
when I approach quite close, it merely turns round its liead, 
dilates its beautiful dark eye, and opens its beak, within which 
tlie tiny sliarp tongue is saying, I am sure, " Don't for good- 
ness' sake disturb me, for if you force me to leave, the children 
will be burned to death." 

June Gth. — My chattel Joe, " adscriptus mihi domino" 
(iwoke me to a bath of Mississippi water with huge lumps of 
ice in it, to which he recommended a mint-julep as an ad- 
junct. It was not here that I was first exposed to an ordeal 
of mint-julep, for in the early morning a stranger in a South- 
ern planter's house may expect the offer of a glassful of 
brandy, sugar, and peppermint beneath an island of ice — an 
obligatory panacea for all the evils of climate. After it has 
been disposed of, Pompey may come up again with glass 
number two: '' Massa say fever very bad this morning — 
much dew." It is possible that the degenerate Anglo-Saxon 
stomach has not the fine tone and temper of that of an Hiber- 
nian friend of mine, who considered the finest thing to coun- 
teract the effects of a little excess was a tumbler of hot whiskey 
and water the moment the sufferer opened his eyes in the 
morning. Therefore, the kindly offering may be rejected. 
But on one occasion before breakfast the negro brought up 
mint-julep number three, the acceptance of which he enforced 
by the emphatic declaration, " Massa says, sir, you had better 
take this, because it'll be the last he make before breakfast." 

Breakfast is served : there is on the table a profusion of 
dishes — grilled fowl, prawns, eggs and ham, fish from New 
Orleans, potted salmon from England, preserved meats from 
France, claret, iced water, coffee and tea, varieties of hominy, 
mush, and African vegetable preparations. Then come the 



A NEGRO'S EARLY REMINISCENCES. 277 

newspapers, which are perused eagerly with ejaculations, " Do 
you hear what they are doing now — infernal villains ! that 
Lincoln must be mad!" and the like. At one o'clock, in 
spite of the sun, I rode out with Mr. Lee, along the road by 
the Mississippi, to Mr. Burnside's plantation, called Orange 
Grove, from a few trees which still remain in front of the 
overseer's house. We visited an old negro, called " Boat- 
swain," who lives with his old wife in a wooden hut close by 
the margin of the Mississippi. His business is to go to Don- 
aldson ville for letters, or meat, or ice for the house — a tough 
row for the withered old man. He is an Afncan born, and 
he just remembers being carried on boai'd ship and taken to 
some big city before he came upon the plantation. 

" Do you remember nothing of the country you came from, 
Boatswain ? " " Yes, sir. Jist remember trees and sweet 
things my mother gave me, and much hot sand I put ray 
feet in, and big leaves that we play with — all us little chil- 
dren — and plenty to eat, and big birds and shells." " Would 
you like to go back, Boatswain ? " " What for, sir ? no one 
know old Boatswain there. My old missus Sally inside." 
" Are you quite happy, Boatswain ? " " I'm getting very old, 
massa. Massa Burnside very good to Boatswain, but who 
care for such dam old nigger ? GoUa Mighty gave me four- 
teen children, but he took them all away again from Sally 
and me. No budy care much for dam old nigger like me." 
Furtlier on Mr. Seal salutes us from the veranda of his 
house, but we are bound for overseer Gibbs, who meets us, 
mounted, by the roadside — a man grim in beard jmd eye, 
and silent withal, with a big whip in his hand and a large 
knife stuck in his belt. He leads us through a magnificent 
area of cane and maize, the latter towering fai* above our 
heads ; but I was most anxious to see the forest primeval 
which borders the clear land at the back of the estate, and 
spreads away over alligator-haunted swamps into distant 
bayous. It was not, however, possible to gratify one's cu- 
riosity very extensively beyond the borders of the cleared 
land, for rising round the roots of the cypress, swamp-pine, 
and live-oak, there was a barrier of undergrowth and bush 
twined round the cane-brake which stands some sixteen feet 
high, so stiff that the united force of man and horse could 
not make way agaiast the rigid fibres; and indeed, as Mr. 
Gibbs told us, " When the niggers take to the cane-brake they 
can beat man or dog, and nothing beats them but snakes and 
starvation." 



278 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

He pointed out souk; slicds aroiiiid which were broken bot- 
tles where the hist Irish }r,<\n<r liud been working, under one 
"John Lofi;lilin," of Donivldsonville, a prreat contractor, who, 
lie says, made ijhaity of money out of his countrymen, whose 
bones are lying up and down tiie Mississip|)i. "They due 
work like lire," he said. " J^oghlin does not give them half 
the rations we give our negroes, but lie i-an always manage 
tiiem with whiskey; and when he wants them to do a job lie 
gives them plenty of 'forty-rod,' and they have their hglit 
out — reglar free (igiit, I can tell you, while it lasts. Next 
morning tiu^y will sign anything and go anywluu-e with him." 

On the Orange Grove Plantation, although the crops were 
so fine, the negroes uiKpiestionably seemed less condorlable 
than those in the ipiarters of Iloumas, separated from them 
by a mere nominal division. Then, again, there were more 
children with tiiir complexions to be seen peeping out of the 
huts ; some of these were attributed to the former- overseer, 
one Johnson by name, but Mr. Gibbs, as if to vindicate his 
memory, tohl me eontidenlially he had paid a large sum of 
money to the former j)roprietor of the estate for one of his 
cliildren, and had carried it away with him when lui left. 
" You could not expect him, you know," said Gibbs, " to buy 
them all at the prices that were then going in '56. All the 
children on the estate," added he, " are healthy, and 1 can 
show my lot against Seal's over theni, though I hear tell he 
had a great show of them out to you yesterday." 

The bank of the river below the large |)lantation was occu- 
pied by a set of small Creole planters, whose poor houses were 
close together, indicating very limited farms, which had been 
subdivided from time to time, according to the French i'ashion; 
so that the owners have at hist approached pauperism ; but 
ihey are tenacious of their rights, and will not yield to the 
dnipting price olFered by the large plant(M's. They cling to 
the soil without enterprise and without care. The Spanish 
settlers along the river are open to the same reproach, and 
piefer their own ease to the extension of their race in other 
lands, or to the aggrandizement of their posterity ; and an 
Epicurean would aver, they were truer j)hilosophers than the 
restless creatures who wear out their lives in toil and labor to 
found empires for the i'uture. 

It is among these men that, at times, slavery assumes its 
harshest aspect, and that the negroes are exposed to the 
severest labor ; but it is also true that the slaves have closer 



FRENCH CREOLES. 279 

relations with (he families of their owners, and hve in more 
intimate eonneetion with tlu'in than they do nnch'r the strict 
police of the larpje plantations. The-;e people sometimes get 
forty hijshels of eorn to the a(!re, and a hogshead and a half 
of sugar. "We saw their children going to school, whilst the 
heads of the houses sat in the veranda smoking, and their 
mothers were busy with household duticis ; and the signs of 
life, the voices of women and children, and the activity vis- 
ible on the little farms, contrasted not unpleasantly with the 
desert-lik(^ stillness of the larger .settlements. Rode back in 
a thunder-storm. 

At dinner in the evening Mr. Burnside entertained a num- 
ber of planters in the ncMgliborliood, — M. Bringier, M. 
Coidon (French Creoles), IMr. Duncan Kenner, a medical 
gentleman named Cotmann, and others; the last - nauK^d 
gentleman is an Unionist, and does not hesitate to defend his 
opinions ; but he has, during a visit to Russia, formed high 
ideas of the necessity and virtues of an absolute and central- 
ized government. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

"\Yar-rumors, and military movements — Governor Manning's slave 
plantations — Fortunes made by slave-labor — Frogs for the tabid 
— The forest — Cotton and sugar — A thunder-storm. 

June 1th. — The Confederate issue of ten millions sterling, 
in bonds payable in twenty y(!ars is not suflicient to meet the 
demands of Government ; and the four millions of small Treas- 
ury notes, without interest, issued by Congress, are being rap- 
idly absorbed. Whilst the Richmond papers demand an 
immediate movement on Washington, the journals of New 
York are clamoring for an advance upon Richmond. The 
])lanters are called upon to accept the Confederate bonds in 
payment of the cotton to be contributed by the States. 

Extraordinary delusions prevail on both slides. The North 
believe that battalions of scalping Indian savages are actually 
stationed at Harper's Ferry. One of the most important 
movements has been made by Major-General McCiellan, who 
has marched a force into Western Virginia from Cincinnati, 
has occupied a portion of the line of the Baltimore and Ohio 
railway, which was threatened with destruction by the Seces- 
sionists ; and has already advanced as far as Grafton. Gen. 
McDowell has been appointed to the command of the Federal 
forces in Virginia. Every day regiments are pouring down 
from the North to Washington. General Butler, who is in 
command at Fortress Monroe, has determined to employ ne- 
gro fugitives, whom he has called " Contrabands," in the works 
about the fort, feeding them, and charging the cost of their 
keep against the worth of their services ; and Mr. Cameron, 
the Secretary of War, has ordered him to r(?frain from sur- 
rendering such slaves to their masters, whilst he is to permit 
no interference by his soldiers with the relations of persons 
held to service under the laws of the States in which they 
are in. 

Mr. Jefferson Davis has arrived at Richmond. At sea the 
Federal steamers have captured a number of Southern ves« 



MONSIEUR CRAPAUD. 281 

sels ; and some small retaliations have been made by the 
Confederate privateers. The largest mass of the Confederate 
troops have assembled at a place called IVIanassas Junction, 
on tlie railway from Western Virginia to Alexandria. 

The Northern papers are fdled with an account of a battle 
at Philippi, and a great victory, in which no less than two of 
their men were wounded and two were reported missing asi 
the whole casualties ; but Napoleon scarcely expended so 
much ink over Austerlitz as is absorbed on this glory in the 
sensation headings of the New York papers. 

After breakfast I accompanied a party of Mr. Burnside's 
friends to visit the plantations of Govenior Manning, close at 
hand. One plantation is as like another as two peas. We 
had the same paths tln-ough tasselling corn, high above our 
heads, or through wastes of rising sugar-cane ; but tlie slave 
quarters on Governor Manning's were larger, better built, 
and more comfortable-looking tiian any I have seen. 

Mr. Bat(;man, the overseer, a dour strong man, with specta- 
cles on nose, and a quid in his cheek, led us over the ground. 
As he saw my eye resting on a large knife in a leather case 
stuck in his belt, he thought it necessary to say, " I keep this 
to cut my way through the cane-brakes about ; they are so 
plaguey thick." 

All the surface water upon the estate is carried into a large 
open drain, with a reservoir in which the fans of a large wheel, 
driven by steam-power, are worked so as to throw the water 
over to a cut below the level of the plantation, which carries it 
into a bayou connected with the lower Mississippi. 

In this drain one of my companions saw a prodigious frog,, 
about the size of a tortoise, on whicii he pouncedrwith alacrity ; 
and on carrying his prize to land he was much congratulated 
by his friend. " Wliat on earth will you do witli the horrid 
reptile ? " '" Do with it ! why, eat it to be sure." And it is 
actually true, that on our return the monster " cra[)aud " was 
handed over to the old cook, and presently appeared on the 
breakfast-table, looking very like an uncommonly fine spatch- 
cock, and was partaken of with enthusiasm by all the com- 
pany. 

From the draining-wheel we proceeded to visit the forest, 
where negroes were engaged in clearing the trees, turning up 
the soil between the stumps, which marked where the mighty 
sycamore, live oak, guin-trees, and pines had lately shaded the 
rich earth. In some places the Indian cprn was already wav- 



282 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ing its head and tassels above the black gnarled roots ; in other 
spots the trees, girdled by the axe, but not yet down, rose up 
from tliick crops of maize ; and still deeper in the wood 
negroes were guiding the ploughs, dragged with pain and dif- 
ficulty by mules, three abreast, through the tangled roots and 
rigid earth, which will next year be fit for sowing. There 
were one hundred and twenty negroes at work ; and these, 
with an adequate number of mules, will clear four hundred 
and fifty acres of land this year. " But it's death on niggers 
and mules," said Mr. Bateman. " We generally do it with 
Irish, as well as the hedging and ditching ; but we can't ge* 
them now, as they are all off to the wars." 

AUhough the profits of sugar are large, the cost of erecting 
the machinery, the consumption of wood in the boiler, and the 
scientific apparatus, demand a fiir larger capital than is re- 
quired by the cotton planter, who, when he has got land, may 
[H-ocure negroes on credit, and only requires food and clothing 
till he can realize the proceeds of their labor, and make a cer- 
tain fortune. Cotton will keep where sugar spoils. The 
prices are far more variable in the latter, although it has a 
protective tariff of twenty per cent. 

The whole of the half million of hogsheads of the sugar 
grown in the South is consumed in the United States, whereas 
most of the cotton is sent abroad ; but in the event of a block- 
ade the South can use its sugar ad nauseam, whilst the cotton 
is all but useless in consequence of the want of manufacturers 
in the South. 

When I got back, Mr. Burnside was seated in his veranda, 
gazing with anxiety, but not with apprehension, on the march- 
ing columns <?f black clouds, whicli were lighted up from time 
lo time by heavy flashes, and shaken by rolls of thunder. 
Day after day the planters have been looking for rain, tapping 
glasses, scrutinizing aneroids, consulting negro weath(u- proph- 
ets, and now and then their expectations were excited by 
clouds moving down the river, only to be disa|)pointed by their 
departure into space, or, worse than all, their favoring more 
distant plantations with a shower that brought gold to many a 
coffer. " Did you ever see such luck ? Kenner has got it 
again ! That's the third shower Bringier has had in the last 
two days." 

But it was now the turn of all our friends to envy us a 
tremendous tiunider-storm, with a heavy, even downfall of 
rain, which was sucked up by the thirsty earth almost as fast 



PRAYING FOR RAIN. 283 

as it fell, and filled the lusty young corn with growing pains, 
imparting such vigor to the cane that we literally saw il 
sprouting up, and could raai'k the increase in height of the 
stems from hour to hour. 

My good host is rather uneasy about his prospects this 
year, owing to the war ; and no wonder. He reckoned on an 
income of £100,000 for his sugar alone; but if he cannot 
send it North it is impossible to estimate the diminution of 
his profits. I fancy, indeed, he more and more regrets that 
he embarked his ca|)ital in these great sugar-swamps, and that 
he would gladly now invest it at a loss in the old country, of 
which he is yet a subject ; for he has never been naturalized 
in the United States. Nevertheless, he rejoices in the finest 
clarets, and in wines of fabulous price, which are tended by 
an old white-headed negro, who takes as much care of the 
fluid as if he was accustomed to drink it every day. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Visit to Mr. M'Call's plantation — Irish and Spaniards — The planter 

— A Southern sportinj? man — The Creoles — Leave Houmas — 
Donaldson villo — Description of tiic City — Raton Rouge — 
Steamer to Natchez — Southern feelinf^ ; faith in .leffl'rson Davis 

— Rise and proi^ress of prosjierity for the planters — Ultimate 
issue of the war to both North and South. 

June St/i. — According to promise, the inmates of Mr. 
Burnside's house |)roceeded to pay a visit to-day to the phui- 
tation of Mr. M'Call, who lives at the other side of the river 
some ten or twelve miles away. Still the same noiseless plan- 
tations, the same oj)pressive stillness, broken only by the toll- 
ing; of the bell whicii sumu\ons the slaves to labor, or marks 
tiie brief periods of its i-espite ! Whilst waitinjjj for the ferry- 
boat, we visited Dr. Cotinaim, who lives in a snuj^ liouse near 
the levee, for, hurried as we were, 'twould nevertheless hav 
been a f^ross breach of etiquette to have passed his doors 
and I was not sorry for the opjiortunity of makinfj^ the aC 
qnaintanee of a lady so amiable as his wife, and of seeing a 
faee with tender, pensive eyes, serene brow, and lovely eon- 
tour, sucli as Giiido or Greuse would have immortalized, and 
which Miss Cotinann, in the seclusion of that little villa on 
the banks of the Mississippi, scarcely seemed to know, would 
have made her a beauty in any capital in Europe. 

The Doctor is allowed to rave on about his Union propen- 
sities and political power, as Mr. Petigru is permitted to in- 
dulge in similar vagaries in Charleston, simply because he is 
supposed to be helpless. There is, however, at the bottom of 
tiie Doctor's opposition to the prevailing political opinion r>f 
the neighborhood, a jealousy of acres and slaves, and a senti- 
ment of animosity to the great seigneurs and slave-owners, 
which actuate him without his being aware of their intluence. 
After a halt of an hour in his house, we crossed in the I'erry 
to Donaldsonville, where, whilst we were waiting for the car- 
riages, we heard a dialogue between some drunken Irishmen 



SPANISH AND IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 285 

and some still more inebriated Spaniards in front of the public- 
house at hand. The Irishmen were j:joing off lo the wars, and 
were endfavorinsr in vain to arouse the foreign <>;enth!m('n to 
similar enthusiasm; but, as the latter were i-esolutcly sitting 
in the guttfM-, it became necessary to (>xert eloquence and force 
to get them on their legs to march to the head-quarters of the 
Donaldsunville Chasseurs. " For tlie love of the Virgin and 
your own sowl's sake, Fernand(>y, g(>t up and cum along wid 
us to tight the Yankees." " Josey, are you going to let us be 
murdered by a set of damned Protestins and rascally nig- 
gers?" " Gomey, my darling, get up; it's (deven dollars a 
month, and food and everytliing found. The boys will mind 
the fishing tor you, and we'll come back as rich as Jews." 

What success attended their appeals I cannot tell, for the 
carriages came round, and, having crossed a great bayou 
which runs down into an arm of the IMississippi near the sea, 
we proceeded on our way to Mr. M'Call's plantation, which 
we r<*ached just as the sun was siidcing into the clouds of an- 
other thunder-storm. 

The more one sees of a planter's life the greater is the con- 
viction that its charms come from a j)articular turn of mind, 
which is separated by a wide interval from modern ideas in 
Europe. The planter is a denomadized Arab; — he has fixed 
himself with horses and slaves in a fertile spot, where he 
guards his women with Oriental care, exercisers patriarchal 
sway, and is at once fierce, tend(!r, and hospitable. The ituier 
life of his houseliold is exceedingly charming, because one is 
astonished to tind the graces and accomplislnnents of woman- 
hood displayed in a scene which has a certain sort of savage 
vudciness about it after all, and where all kinds of incongruous 
accidents are visible in the service of the table, in the furin- 
ture of the house, in its decorations, menials, and surrounding 
scenei'y. 

It was late in the evening when the party returned to 
Donaldsonville ; and when we arrived at the other side of the 
bayou there were no carriages, so that we had to walk on foot 
to the wharf where Mr. Burnside's boats were supposed to be 
waiting — the negro ferrv-mai\ having long since retired to 
rest. Under any circumstances a march on foot through an 
unknown track covered with blocks of titnber and other im- 
pedimenta which represented the road to the ferry, could not 
be agrticabie ; but tlie recent rains had converted the ground 
into a sea of mud tilled with holes, with islands of planks and 



286 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

beams of timber, lighted only by the stars — and then this in 
dress trousers and light boots ! 

We plunged, struggled, and splashed till we reached the 
levee, wliei-e boats there were none; and so Mr. Burnside 
shouted up and down the river, so did Mr. Lee, and so did 
Mr. Ward and all the others, whilst I sat on a log affecting 
philosophy and indifl'erence, in spite of tortures from mosqui- 
toes innumerable, and severe bites from insects unknown. 

The city and river were buried in darkness ; the rush of the 
stream which is sixty feet deep near the banks, was all that 
struck upon the car in the intervals of the cries, " Boat ahoy ! " 
" Ho ! Batcher ! " and sundry ejaculations of a less regular 
and decent form. At length a boat did glide out of the dark- 
ness, and the man who rowed it stated he had been waiting all 
the time up the bayou, till by mere accident he came down to 
the jetty, having given us up for the night. In about half an 
hour we were across the river, and had per force another in- 
terview with Dr. Cotmann, who regaled us with his best in 
story and in wine till the carriages were ready, and we drove 
back to Mr. Burnside's, only meeting on the way two mount- 
ed horsemen with jingling arms, who were, we were told, the 
night patrol ; — of their duties I could, however, obtain no 
very definite account. 

June dth. — A thunder-storm, which lasted all the morning 
and afternoon till three o'clock. When it cleared I drove, in 
company with Mr. Burnside and his friends, to dinner with 
Mr. Duncan Kenner, who lives some ten or twelve miles 
above Houmas. He is one of the sporting men of the South, 
■well known on the Charleston race-course, and keeps a large 
stable of racehorses and brood mares, under the management 
of an Englishman. The jocks were negro lads ; and when 
we arrived, about half a dozen of them were giving the colts 
a run in the paddock. The calveless legs and hollow thighs 
of the negi'o adapt him admirably for the pigskin ; and these 
little fellows sat their horses so well, one might have thought, 
till the turn in the course displayed their black faces and grin- 
ning mouths, he was looking at a set of John Scott's young 
gentlemen out training. 

The Carolinians are true sportsmen, and in ihe South the 
Charleston races create almost as much sensation as our Derby 
at home. One of the guests at Mr. Kenner's knew all about 
the winners of Epsom Oaks, and Ascot, and took delight iu 
showing his knowledge of the " Racine; Calendar." 



DONALDSONVILLE. 287 

It is observable, however, that the Creoles do not exhibit 
any great enthusiasm for horse-racing, but that they apply 
themselves rather to cultivate their plantations and to domestic 
duties ; and it is even remarkable that they do not stand prom- 
inently forward in the State Legislature, or aspire to high 
political influence and position, although (heir numbers and 
wealth would fairly entitle them to both. The jjopulation of 
small settlers, scarcely removed from j)auperism, along the river 
banks, is courted by men who obtain larger political influence 
than the great land-owners, as the latter consider it beneath 
them to have recourse to tlie arts of the deuiagogue. 

June lOf/i. — At h\!^i venit snmma dies et inelnctdhile tempus. 
I had seen as much as might be of the best phase of the great 
institution — less than I could desire of a most exemplary, 
kind-hearted, clear-headed, hon(!st man. In th(> calm of a 
glorious summer evening we crossed the Father of Waters, 
waving an adieu to the good friend who stood on the shore, 
and turning our backs to the home we had left behind us. It 
was dark wlien the boat reached Donaldsonville on the oppo- 
site " coast." 

I should not be surprised to hear that the founder of this 
remarkable city, which once contained the archives of the 
State, now transferred to Baton Rouge, was a North Briton. 
There is a simplicity and economy in the plan of the j>lace 
not unfavorable to that view, but the motives which induced 
Donaldson to found his Rome on the west of Bayou La 
Fourche from the Mississippi must be a secret to all Lime. 
Much must the worthy Scot have Ixu'ii pcr[)lexed by his 
neigldiors, a long-reaching colony of S[)anish Creoles, who toil 
not and spin nothing but lisliing-nets, and who liv(; better than 
Solomon, and are probably as well-dressed, minus the bar- 
baric pearl and gold of the Hebrew potentate. Take the 
odd, little, retiring, modest houses which grow in the hollows 
of Scarborough, add to them the least imposing mansions in 
the town of Folkstone, cast these broadsown over the surface 
of the Essex marshes, j)lant a few trees in I'ront of them, then 
open a few cafes billard of the camp sort along the main 
street, and you have done a very good Donaldsonville. 

A policeman welcomes us on the landing, and does the 
honors of the market, which has a beggarly account of 
empty benches, a Texan bull done into beef, and a coflTee- 
shop. The policeman is a tall, lean, west-countryman ; his 
Story is simple, and he has it to tell. He was one of Dan 






"^ MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Rice's company — a travelling Astley. He came to Donald- 
sonville, saw, and was conquered by one of the Spanish 
beauties, married her, became tavern-keeper, failed, learned 
French, and is now constable of the [)ari.sh. There was, 
however, a weight on his mind. He had studied the matter 
profoundly, but he was not near the bottom. How did the 
iriends, relatives, and tribe of his wife live ? No one could 
say. They reared chickens, and they caught fish ; when there 
was a pressure on the planters, they turned out to work for 
6s. 6c?. a-day, but those were rare occasions. The policeman 
had become quite gray with excogitating the matter, and he 
had " nary notion how they did it." 

Donaldsonville has done one fine thing. It has furnished 
two companies of soldiers — all Irishmen — to the wars, and 
the third is in the course of formation. Not much hedging, 
ditching, or hard work these times for Paddy ! The black- 
smith, a huge tower of muscle, claims exemption on the 
ground that *' the divil a bit of him comes from Oireland : 
he nivir bird af it, bariin' from the buks he rid," and is 
doing his best to remain behind, but popular opinion is 
against him. 

As the steamer could not be up from New Orleans till 
dawn, it was a relief to saunter through Donaldsonville to see 
society, which consisted of several gentlemen and various Jews 
playing games unknown to Hoyle, in oaken bar-rooms flanked 
by billiard tables. Dr. Cotrnann, who had crossed the river 
to see patienis suffering from an attack of euchre, took us 
round to a little club, where I was introduced to a number 
of gentlemen, wlio exi)ressed great pleasure at seeing me, 
shook hands violently, and walked away ; and, finally, melted 
off into a cloud of mosquitoes by the river-bank, into a box 
prepared for them, which was called a bedroom. 

These rooms were built of timber on the stage close by the 
river. " Why can't I have one of these rooms ? " asked I, 
[)ointing to a larger mosquito box. " It is engaged by ladies." 
" How do you know ? " '■^ Parceque elles out envoye leiir butm." 
It was deUcious to meet the Fi'ench "plunder" for baggage — 
the old phrase, so nicely rendered — in the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi boatman. 

Having passed a night of discomfiture with the winged 
demons of my box, I was aroused by the booming of the 
steam drum of the boat, dipped my head in water among 
drowned mosquitoes, and went forth upon the landing. The 



WHISKEY IN DANGER. 289 

policeman had just arrived. His eagle eye lighted upon a 
large flat moored alongside, on the stern ol" which was in- 
scribed in chalk, " Pork, corn, butter, beef," &c. Several 
" spry" citizens were also on the ])latl'orm. After salutations 
and compliments, policeman speaks — " When did s}ie come 
in ? " (meaning flat.) First citizen — " In the night, I 
guess." Second citizen — " There's a lot of whiskey aboord, 
too." Policeman (with pleased surprise) — " Yen never 
mean it?" First citizen — "Yes, sir; one hundred and 
twenty gallons ! " Policeman (inspired by patriotism) — 
" It's a west-country boat ; why dont the citizens seize it ? 
And whiskey rising from 17c. to 35c. a gallon ! " Citizens 
murmur approval, and I feel the wdiiskey part of the cargo 
is not safe. " Yes, sir," says citizen three, " they seize all our 
property at Cairey (Cairo), and I'm making an example of 
this cargo." 

Further reasons for the seizure were adduced, and it is 
probable they were as strong as the whiskey, which has, no 
no doubt, been drunk long ago on the very purest princijjles. 
In course of conversation with the committee of taste which 
had assembled, it was revealed to me that there was a strict 
watch kept over those boats which are freighted with whiskey 
forbidden to the slaves, and with principles, when they come 
from the west country, equally objectionable. " Did you hear, 
sir, of the chap over at Duncan Kenner's, as was caught the 
other day ? " " No, sir ; what was it ? " " Well, sir, lie was 
a man that came here and went over among the niggers at 
Kenner's to buy their chickens from them. He was took up, 
and they found he'd a lot of money about him." " Well, of 
course, he had money to buy the chickens." '' Yes, sir, but 
it looked suspeec-ious. He was a west-country fellow, tew, 
and lie might have been tamperin' with 'em. Lucky for him 
he was not taken in the arternoon." " Why so ? " " Be- 
cause, if the citizens had been drunk, they'd have hung him 
on the spot." 

The Acadia was now along-side, and in the early morning 
Donaldsonville receded rapidly into trees and clouds. To bed, 
and make amends for mosquito visits, and after a long sleep 
look out again on the scene. It is difficult to believe that we 
have been going eleven miles an hour against the turbid river, 
which is of the same appearance as it was below — the same 
banks, bends, driftwood, and trees. Large timber rafts, nav- 
igated by a couple of men, who stood in the shade of a few 
13 



290 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

upright boards, were encountered at long intervals. White 
egrets and blue herons rose from the marshes. At every 
landing the whites who came down were in some soi't of uni- 
form. There were two blacks placed on board at one of the 
landings in irons — captured runaways — and very miserable 
they looked at the thought of being restored to the bosom of 
the ])atriarchal family from which they had, no doubt, so 
prodigally eloped. I fear the fatted calf-skin would be ap- 
plied to their backs. 

June Will. — Before noon the steamer hauled along-side a 
stationary hulk at Baton Rouge, which once " walked the 
waters " by the aid of machinery, but which was now used as 
a floating hotel, depot, and storehouse — 315 feet long, and 
fully thirty feet on the upper deck above the level of the 
river. The Acadia stopped, and I disembarked. Here were 
my quarters till the boat for Natchez should arrive. The 
proprietor of the floating hotel was somewhat excited be- 
cause one of his servants was away. The man presently 

came in sight. " Where have you been you ? " " Away 

to buy de newspaper, Massa." " For who, you ? " " Me 

buy 'em for no one, Massa ; me sell 'urn agin, Massa." " See 

now, you , if ever you goes aboard them steamers to 

meddle with newspapers, I'm but I'll kill you, mind 

that ! " 

Baton Rouge is the capital of the State of Louisiana, and 
the State House thereof is a very quaint and very new exam- 
ple of bad taste. The Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in- 
a much better style. It was my intention to have visited the 
State Prison and Penitentiary, but the day was too hot, and 
the distance too great, and so I dined at the oddest little Cre- 
ole restaurant, with the funniest old hostess, and the strangest 
company in the Avorld. 

On returning to the boat hotel, INIr. Conrad, one of the cit- 
izens of the place, and Mr. W. Avery, a judge of the district 
court, were good enough to call and to invite me to remain 
some time, but I was obliged to decline. These gentlemen 
were members of the home guard, and drilled assiduously 
every evening. Of the 1300 voters at Baton Rouge, more 
than 750 are already off to the wars, and another company 
is being formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has three sons 
in the field, and another is anxious to follow, and he and his 
friend, Mr. Avery, are quite ready to die for the disunion. 
The waiter who served out drinks in the bar wore a uniform, 



NATCHEZ PLANTERS. 291 

and his musket lay in the corner among the brandy bottles 
At night a patriotic meeting of citizen soldiery took place in 
the bow, with which song and whiskey had much to do, so 
that sleep was difficult. 

Precisely at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning tlie Mary 
1. came alongside, and soon afterward bore me on to Natchez 
through scenery which became wilder and less cultivated as 
she got upwards. Of the 1500 steamers on the river, not a 
• ^f/^/''«,"o^^ "1 employment, and the owners of these profit- 
able flotillas are " in a bad way." It was late at night when 
he steamer arrived at Natchez, and next morning early I 
ook shelter m another engineless steamer beside the bank of 
the nyer at Natchez-under-the-hill, wiiich was thought to be 
a hotel by its owners. ° 

In the morning I asked for breakfast. " Thej-e is nothino- 
lor breakfast; go to Curry's on shore." Walk up hill tS 
Curry s — a bar-room occupied by a waiter and flies. " Can 

I liave any breakfast .? " "No sir-rpp • u'c ^,r.>r. i.„if i 
„„„» « AT .1,- X ^>o, sn-i(e, Us over half-an-hour 

ago. "Nothing to eat at all.?" " No, sir." - Can I ..et 
some anywhere else ? » " I guess not." It had been my be- 
lief that a man with money in his pocket could not siarve 
in any country soi-disant civilized. I chewed the cud of 
tancy faute de mieiix, and became the centre of attraction to 
citizen.s from whose conversation I learned that this was 

Well soon have Sunday every day, then, for I 'spect i 
wont be worth while for most shops to keep ope L any 
onger. Natchez, a place of much trade and cotton export 

V^t^^rV^ T 'f ^""-^^' "^ ^=^^' ^' H^'-^-^^h without 
a legatta. But it is ultra-secessionist, nil obstante. 

My hunger was assuaged by Mr. Marshall, who drove me 
to hi. comfortable mansion through a country like the wooded 

C] n«, k ll^'l^'A T '!'^'"" '" ^"" ^'■^^^■'' ^"^^ "^ the only lawns 
and park-like helds I have yet seen in America. 

exoen e wT ^""^^'T^ ^ -^'^-^^I'T corps at his^wn 
expense. We were obliged to get out of the carria-e at 
a narrow lane and walk toward the encampment on foot in the 
dark; a sentry stopped us, and we observed that there was a 
semblance of military method in the camp. The captain.was 
walking up and down in the veranda of the poor hut, for 
Which he had abandoned his home. A book of tactics — Har 



292 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

dee's — lay on the table of his little room. Our friend was 
full of flight, and said he would give all he had in the woihl to 
the cause. But the day before, and a party of JKjrse, com- 
posed of sixty gentlemen in the district, worth from £20,000 
to £50,000 eacli, had started for the war in Virginia. Every- 
thing to be seen or heard testifies to the great zeal and resolu- 
tion with which the South have entered upon the quarrel. 
But they hold the power of the United States, and the loyalty 
of the North to the Union at far too cheap a rate. 

Next day was passed in a delightful drive through cotton 
fields, Indian corn, and undulating woodlands, amid which were 
some charming residences. I crossed the river at Natchez, 
and saw one tine plantation, in which the corn, however, was 
by no means so good as the crops I have seen on the coast. 
The cotton looks well, and some had already burst into flower 
— bloom, as it is called — wliich has turned to a flagrant pink, 
and seems saucily conscious that its boll will play an important 
part in tlie world. 

The inhabitants of the tracts on the banks of the Missis- 
sippi, and on the inland regions hereabout, ought to be, in the 
natural order of things, a people almost nomadic, living by 
the chase, and by a sparse agriculture, in the freedom which 
tempted their ancestors to leave Europe. But the Old World 
has been working for tliem. All its trials have been theirs ; 
the fruits of its experience, its labors, its research, its discov- 
eries, are theirs. Steam has enabled them to turn their rivers 
into highways, to open primeval forests to the light of day and 
to man. All these, however, would have availed them little 
had not the demands of manufacture abroad, and the increas- 
ing luxury and population of the North and West at home, 
enabled them to find in these swamps and uj)hinds sources of 
wealth richer and more certain than all the gold mines of the 
world. 

There must be gnomes to work those mines. Slavery was 
an institution ready to their hands. In its development there 
lay every material means for securing the prosperity which 
Manchester opened to them, and in supplying their own coun- 
trymen with sugar. The small, struggling, deeply-mortgaged 
proprietors of swamp and forest set their negroes to work to 
raise levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. Cotton at 
ten cents a pound gave a nugget in every boll. Land could 
be had for a few dollars an acre. Negroes were cheap in pro- 
portion. Men who made a few thousand dollars invested them 



DANGERS OF THE FUTURE. 298 

in more ncgrofs, and more lanrl, and borrowed as muoli again 
for the same purpose. Tliey waxed fat and rich — there 
seemed no boimils to their fortune 

But thr('alenin<5 voices came from the North — the echoes 
of the sentiments of the civilized world repenting of its evil 
pierced their ears, and they found their feet were of clay, and 
that they were nodding to their fall in the midst of their 
power. Ruin inevitable awaited them if they did not shut out 
these sounds and stop the fatal utterances. 

The issue is to them one of life and death. Whoever raises 
it hereafter, if it be not decided now, must expect to meet the 
deadly animosity which is now displayed towards the North. 
The success of the South — if they can succeed — must lead 
to complications and results in otiier ])arts of the world, for 
which neither they nor P2urope are prepared. Of one thing 
there can be no doubt — a slave state cannot long exist without 
a slave trade. The poor whites who have won the fight will 
demand their share of the s|)oils. The land for tilth is abund- 
ant, and all that is wanted to give them fortunes is a supply of 
slaves. They will have that in spite of their masters, unless 
a stronger power than the Slave States prevents the accom- 
plishment of their wishes. 

The gentleman in whose house I was stopping was not in- 
sensible to the dangers of the future, and would, I think, like 
many others, not at all regret to find himself and property safe 
in England. His father, the very day of our arrival, had pro- 
ceeded to Canada with his daughters, but the Confederate 
authorities are now determined to confiscate all pro[)erty be- 
longing to persons who endeavor to evade the responsibilities 
of patriotism. In such matters the i)ressure of the majority is 
irresistible, and a sort of mob law supplants any remissness on 
the part of the authorities. In the South, where the deeds of 
the land of cypress and myrtle are exaggerated by passion, 
this power will be exercised very rigorously. The very lan- 
guage of the people is full of the excesses generally accepted 
as types of Americanism. Turning over a newspaper this 
morning, I came upon a " card " as it is called, signed by one 
"Mr. Bonner," relating to a dispute between himself and an 
Assistant-Quarter-Master-General, about the carriage of some 
wood at Mobile, which concludes with llie sentence that I 
transcribe, as an evidence of the style which is tolerated, if 
not admired, down South : — 



294 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

" If such a Shylock-hearted, caitiff scoundrel does exist, 
give me the evidence, and I will drag him before the bar of 
public opinion, and consign him to an infamy so deep and 
damnable that the hand of the Resurrection will never reach 
him." 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Down the Mississippi — Hotel at Vicksbiirg — Dinner — Public meet^ 
ing — News of the progress of the war — Slavery and England 
— Jackson — Governor Pettus — Insecm-ity of life — Strong 
Soutliern enthusiasm — Troops bound for the North — Approach 
to Memphis — Slaves for sale — Memphis — General Pillow. 

Friday, June 14//z. — Last night with my good host from 
his plantation to the great two-storied steamer General Quit- 
man, at Natchez. She was crowded with planters, soldiers 
and their families, and as the lights shone out of her windows, 
looked like a walled castle blazing from double lines of em- 
brasures. 

The Mississippi is assuredly the most uninteresting river in 
the world, and I can only describe it hereabout by referring 
to the account of its appearance which I have already given 
— not a particle of romance, in spite of oratorical patriots and 
prophets, can ever shine from its depths, sacred to cat and 
buffalo fish, or vivify its turbid waters. 

Before noon we were in sight of Vicksburg, which is sit- 
uated on a high bank or bluff on the left bank of the river, 
about 400 miles above New Orleans and some 120 miles from 
Natchez. 

Mr. MacMeekan, the proprietor of the " Washington," de- 
clares himself to have been the pioneer of hotels in the far 
west ; but he has now built himself this huge caravansary, 
and rests from his wanderings. We entered the dining saloon, 
and found the tables closely packed with a numerous company 
of every condition in life, from generals and planters down to 
soldiers in the uniform of privates. At the end of the room 
there was a long table on which the joints and dishes were 
brought hot from the kitchen to be carved by the negro 
waiters, male and female, and as each was brought in the 
proprietor, standing in the centre of tiie room, shouted out 
with a loud voice, " Now, then, here is a splendid goose ! 
ladies and gentlemen, don't neglect the goose and apple-sauce ! 



296 MY DIARY NORTU AND SOUTH. 

Here's a piece of beef that /can recomnieiul ! upon my honor 
you will never regrcl taking • slice of the beef. Oyster-pie! 
oyster-pie ! never was better oyster-])ie seen in Vicksburg. 
Kun about, boys, and take orders. Ladies and gentlemen, 
just look at that turkey! who's for turkey?" — and so on, 
wiping the perspiration from his forehead and combating with 
the Hies. 

Altogether it was a semi-barbarous scene, but the host was 
active and attentive ; and after all, his recommendations were 
very nnieh like those which it was the habit of the taverners 
in old London to call out in the streets to the passers-by when 
the joints were ready. The little negroes who ran about to 
take orders were smart, but now and then came into violent 
collision, and were cutl'ed incontinently. One mild-looking 
little fellow stood by my chair and ap[)eared so sad that 1 
asked him " Are you ha[)py, my boy ? " He looked quite 
frightened. " Why don't you answer me ? " " I'se afeered, 
sir ; 1 can't tell that to Massa." " Is not your master kind to 
you?" " JMassa very kind man, sir; very good man when 
he is not angry with me," and his eyes iilled with tears to the 
brim. 

The war fever is rife in Vicksburg, and the Irish and Ger- 
man laborers, to the extent of several hundreds, have all gone 
off to the war. 

When dinner was over, the mayor and several gentlemen 
of the city were good enough to request that I would attend 
a meeting at a room in the railway-station, where some of the 
inhabitants of the town had assembled. Accordingly I went 
to the terminus and found a room iilled with gentlemen. 
Large china bowls, blocks of ice, bottles of wine and spirits, 
and boxes of cigars were on the table, and all the materials 
for a symjmsium. 

The company discussed recent events, some of which I 
learned for the first time. Dislike was expressed to the 
course of the authorities in demanding negro labor for the 
fortifications along the river, and uneasiness was expressed 
respecting a negro ])lot in Arkansas ; but the most interesting 
matter was Judge Taney's protest against the legality of the 
President's course in suspending the writ of habeas corpus in 
the case of Merrimau. Tiie lawyers who were present at this 
meeting were delighted with his argument, which insists that 
Congress alone can suspend the writ, and that the President 
cannot legally do so. 



THE CAPITAL OF MISSISSIPPI. 297 

The news of the defeat of an expedition from Fortress 
Monroe against a Confederate post at Great Bethel, has 
caused great rejoicing. The accounts show that there was the 
grossest mismanagement on the part of the Federal otRcers. 
The Northern papers particularly regret the loss of Major 
Winthrop, aide-de-camp to General Butler, a writer of prom- 
ise. At four o'clock, p. M., I bade the company ferewell, and 
the train started for Jackson. The line runs through a poor 
clay country, cut up with guUeys and watercourses mad« by 
violent rain. 

There were a number of volunteer soldiers in the train ; 
and their presence no doubt attracted the girls and women 
who waved flags and clieered for Jetf Davis and States' Rights. 
Well, as I travel on through such scenes, with a fine critical 
nose in the air, I ask myself, " Is any Englishman better than 
these publicans and sinners in regard to this question of 
slavery ? " It was not on moral or religious grounds that our 
ancestors abolished serfdom. And if to-morrow our good 
farmers, deprived of mowers, reapers, ploughmen, hedgers 
and ditchers, were to find substitutes in certain people of a 
dark skin assigned to their use by Act of Parliament, I fear 
they would be almost as ingenious as the Rev. Dr. Seabury in 
discovering arguments physiological, ethnological, and biblical, 
for the retention of their property. And an evil day would it 
be for them if they were so tempted ; for assuredly, without 
any derogation to the intellect of the Southern men, it may 
be said that a large proportion of the population is in a state 
of very great moral degradation compared with civilized An- 
glo-Saxon communities. 

The man is more natural, and more reckless ; he has more 
of the qualities of the Arab than are to be reconciled with 
civilization ; and it is only among the upper classes that the 
influences of the aristocratic condition which is generated by 
the subjection of masses of men to their fellow-man are to be 
found. 

At six o'clock, the train stopped in the country at a railway 
crossing by the side of a large platform. On the right was a 
common, bounded by a few detached wooden houses, separated 
by palings from each other, and surroinided by rows of trees. 
In front of the station were two long wooden sheds, which, as 
the signboard indicates, were exchanges or drinking saloons ; 
and beyond these again were visible some rudimentary streets 
of straggling houses, above which rose three pretentious spires 
13* 



298 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and domes, resolved into insignificance by nearer approach. 
This was Jackson. 

Onr host was at the station in his carriage, and drove us to 
his residence, which consisted of some detached hoiiS(!s shaded 
by trees in a small enclosure, and boinided by a kitchen gar- 
den. He was one of the men who hud been filled with the 
alllatus of 1848, and joined the Young Ireland party before it 
had seriously committed itself to an unfortunate outbreak ; 
and •vhen all hope of success had vanished, he sought, like 
many others of his countrymen, a shelter under the stars and 
stripes, which, like most of the Irish settled in the Southern 
States, he was now bent on tearing asunder. He has the 
lionor of being mayor of Jackson, and of enjoying a competi- 
tive examination with his medical rivals for the honor of at- 
tending the citizens. 

In the evening I walked out with him to the adjacent city, 
which has no title to the name, except as being the State capi- 
tal. The mushroom growth of these States, using that phrase 
merely as to their rapid development, raises hamlets in a 
small space to the dignity of cities. It is in such outlying ex- 
pansion of the great republic tiiat the infiuence of the foreign 
emigration is most forcibly displayed. It would be curious to 
inquire, for example, how many men there are in the city of 
Jackson exercising mechanical arts or engaged in small com- 
merce, in skilled or manual labor, who are really Americans 
in the proper sense of the word. I was struck by tlie names 
over the doors of the shops, which were German, Irish, Italian, 
French, and by foreign tongues and accents in tiie streets ; but, 
on the other hand, it is (he native-born American who obtains 
the highest political stations and arrogates to himself the larg- 
est share of governmental emoluments. 

Jackson proper consists of strings of wooden houses, with 
white porticoes and pillars a world too wide for their shrunk 
rooms, and various religious and other public edifices, of the 
hydrocephalic order of arcliitecture, where vulgar cupola and 
exaggerated steeple tower above little bodies far too feeble to 
sup))ort them. There are of course a monster hotel and blaz- 
ing bar-rooms — the former celebrated as the scene of many a 
serious difficulty, out of some of which the participators never 
escaped alive. Tlie streets consist of rows of houses such as 
I have seen at Macon, Montgomery, and Baton Rouge ; and as 
we walked towards the capital or State-house there were many 
more invitations " to take a drink" addressed to my friend and 



GOVERNOR PETTUS. 299 

me than we were able to comply with. Our steps were bent 
to the State-house, which is a i>ile ot" stone, with oi)en colon- 
nades, ami an air of importance; at a distance wiiich a nearer 
examination of its dilapiilated condition does not conlirni. JNIr. 
Fettiis, the (jovernor of the State of Missis.-ippi, was in the 
Capitol ; and on sendinu; in our cards, we were introduced to his 
i-oom, which certainly was of more than republican simplicity. 
The apartment was surrounded with some common <ijlass cases, 
containinj:^ pa|)ers and old volumes of books ; the furniture, a 
table or ilesk, and a few chairs and a ragged carpet ; the glass 
in the windows cracked and broken ; the walls and ceiling dis- 
colored by mildew. 

The Governor is a silent man, of abrupt speech, but easy of 
access ; and, indeed, whilst we were speaking, strang(M-s and 
soldiers walked in and out of his room, looked around them, 
and acted in all respects as if they were in a public-house, ex- 
cept in ordering drinks. This giim, tall, angular man seemed 
to me such a devclo[)ment of public institutions in the South as 
]\Ir. Seward was in a higher phase in the North. For years 
lie hunted deer and trapped in the forest of the far west, and 
lived in a Natty Bum|)o or Daviil Crocket state of life ; and he 
was not ashamed of the fact when taunted with it during his 
election contest, but very rightly made the most of his inde- 
pendence and his hard work. 

The pecuniary honors of his position are not very great as 
Governor of the enormous State of Mississi|)pi. He has sim- 
ply an income of £800 a year and a house provided for his 
use; he is not only quite contented with what he has but be- 
lieves that the society in which he lives is the highest develop- 
ment of civilized life, notwithstanding the fact that there are 
more outrages on the person in his State, nay, more murders 
perpetrated in the very ca[)ital, than were known in the worst 
days of mediieval Venice! or Florence ; — indeed, as a citizen 
said to me, " Well, I think our average in Jackson is a murder 
a month ; " but he u.s'ed a milder name for the crime. 

The Governor conversed on the aspect of affairs, and evinced 
that wonderful contidencie in his own people which, whether it 
arises from ignorance of the power of the North, or a convic- 
tion of greater resources, is to me so remarkable'. " Well, sir," 
eaid he, drop[)ing a portentous plug of tobacco just outside the 
spittoon, with the air of a man who wished to show he could 
have hit the centre if he liked, " England is no doubt a great 
country, and has got Heets and the like of that, and may have 



300 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

a good (leal to do in ^u-rope ; but the sovereign State of Mis- 
sissippi can do a great deal better without England than Eng- 
land can do without her." Having some slight recollection of 
jVIississippi repudiation, in wliich Mr. Jefferson Davis was so 
actively engaged, I thought it possible that the Governor might 
be riglit ; and after a time his Excellency shook me by the 
hand, and I left, much wondering witlun myself what manner 
of men they must be in the State of Mississippi when Mr. 
Pettus is their chosen Governor ; and yet, after all, he is hon- 
est and fierce ; and perhaps he is so far qualified as well as 
any other man to be Governor of the State. There are news- 
papers, electric telegra|)hs, and railways ; there are many edu- 
cated families, even much good society, I am told, in tlie State ; 
but the larger masses of the people struck me as being in a 
condition not much elevated from that of the original back- 
woodsman. On my return to the Doctor's house I found some 
letters which had been forwarded to me from Nevyr Orleans 
had gone asti'ay, and I was obliged, therefore, to make arrange- 
ments for my departure on the following evening. 

June mth. — I was compelled to send my excuses to Gov- 
ernor Pettus, and remained quietly within the house of my 
host, entreating liim to protect me from visitors and especially 
my own confreres, that I might secure a few hours even in 
that ardent lieat to write letters to home. Now, there is some 
self-denial required, if one be at all solicitous of the popularis 
aura, to otlend the susceptibilities of the irritable genus in 
America. It may make all the difference between millions of 
people hearing and believing you are a high-toned, whole 
souled gentleman or a wretched, ignorant and prejudiced John 
Bull ; but, nevertheless, the solid pudding of self-content and 
the satisfaction of doing one's work are preferable to the praise 
even of a New York newspaper editor. 

When my work was over I walked out and sat in the shade 
witha gentleman whose talk turned upon the practices of the 
Mississippi duello. Witiiout the smallest animus, and in the 
most natural way in the world, he told us tale after tale of 
blood, and recounted terrible tragedies enacted outside bars of 
hotels and in tlie public streets close beside us. The very air 
seemed to become purple as he spoke, the land around a veri- 
table " Aceldama." There may, indeed, be security for prop- 
erty, but there is none for the life of its owner in difficulties, 
wdio may be shot by a stray bullet from a pistol as he walks 
up the street. 



TO GENTLEMEN IN DIFFICULTIES. 301 

I learned many valuable facts. I was warned, for example, 
against tlie ini[)olicy of trusting to small-bored pistols or to 
pocket six-sliooters in case of a close ii^bt, because suppose 
you bit 3'our man mortally be may still run in upon you and 
rip you up witb a bowie-knife before be falls dead ; wbereas 
if you drive a good heavy bullet into bim, or make a bole in 
bim witb a " Derringer " ball, be gets faintisb and drops at 
once. 

Many illustrations, too, wei-e given of tbe value of practical 
lessons of tins sort. One particularly struck me. if a gen- 
tleman witli wbom you are engaged in altercation moves iiis 
band towards bis l)reecbe»; pocket, or bebind bis back, you 
must smasb bim or sboot bim at once, for be is eitber going to 
draw his six-sbooter, to pull out a bowie-knife, oi" to shoot you 
through the lining of bis pocket. Tbe latter practice is con- 
sidered rather ungentlemanly, but it has somewhat been more 
honored lately in the observance than in tiie breach. In fact, 
the savage practice of walking about with pistols, knives, and 
poniards, in bar-rooms and gambling-saloons, witb passions un- 
governed, because there is no law to punish the deeds to 
which they lead, affords facilities for crime wliicb an uncivi- 
lized condition of society leaves too often witliout punisbmcmt, 
but which must be put down or the country in which it is tol- 
erated will become as barbarous as a jungle inhabited by wild 
beasts. 

Our host gave me an early dinner, at which I met some of 
tbe citizens of Jackson, and at six o'clock I proceeded by the 
train for Mein|)bis. The carriages were, of course, full of 
soldiers or volunteers, bound for a large camp at a place willed 
Corinth, who made night hideous by their song and cries, stim- 
ulated by enormous draughts of whiskey and a proportionate 
consumption of tobacco, by teeth and by tire. The beat in 
the carriages added to tbe discomforts arising from these 
causes, and from great quantities of biting insects in the sleep- 
ing places. Tiie ])eople have all the air and manners of set- 
tlers. Altogether tiie impression produced on my mind was 
by no means agreeable, and I felt as if I was indeed in the 
land of Lynch-law and bowie-knives, where tbe passions of 
men have not yet been subordinated to tbe influence of the 
tribunals of justice. Much of this feeling has no doubt been 
produced by the tales to which 1 have been listening around 
me — most of which- have a smack of manslaughter about 
them. 



302 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

June \lth. — If" it was any consolation to me that the very 
noisy and very turbulent warriors of last niglit were exceed- 
iuijly sick, di'jeeted, and cresttallen this morning, I had it to 
the lull. Their cries for water were incessant to alhiy the in- 
ternal fires caused by " lorty-rod " and " sixty-rod," as whiskey 
is called, which is supposed to kill people at those distances. 
Their ofiicers had no control over them — and the only au- 
tiiority they seemed to respect was tliat of the "gentlemanly" 
conductor, whom they were accustomed to fear individually, 
as he is a great man in America and has much authority and 
power to make himself disagreeable if he likes. 

The victory at Big or Little Bethel has greatly elated these 
men, and they think they can walk all over the Northern 
States. It was a relief to get out of the train for a few min- 
utes at a station called Holly Springs, where the passengers 
breakfasted at a dirty table on most execrable coffee, corn 
bread, rancid butter, and very dubious meats, and the wild 
soldiers outside made the most of their time, as they had 
recovered from their temporary depression by this time, and 
got out on the tops of the carriages, over which they performed 
tumultuous dances to the music of their band, and the great 
admiration of the surrounding negrodom. Their demeanor is 
very unlike that of the unexcitable staid people of the North. 

Tiiere were in the train some Texans who were going to 
Richmond to offer their services to Mr. Davis. They de- 
nounced Sam Houston as a traitor, l)ut admitted there were 
some Unionists, or as they termed them, Lincohiite skunks, in 
the State. The real object of their journey was, in my mind, 
to get assistance froin the Southern Confederacy, to put down 
their enemies in Texas. 

In order to conceal from the minds of the people that the 
government at Washington claims to be that of the United 
States, the press politicians and speakers divert their attention 
to the names of Lincoln, Seward, and other black republicans, 
and class the wiiole of the North together as the Abolitionists. 
They call tlie Federal levies " Lincoln's mercenaries " and 
"abolition hordes," though their own troops are paid at the 
sam(i rate as those of the United States, Tiiis is a common 
mode of procedure in revolutions and i-ebellions, and is not 
unf'requent in wars. 

Tlie enthusiasm for the Southern cause among all the people 
is most remarkable, — the sight of the flag waving from the 
carnage windows drew all the population of the hamlets and 



WAYSIDE PARADE. 303 

the workers in the field, blar^k and vvliite, to the side of the 
carriages to cheer for Jeff Davis and tlie Souliiern Confeder- 
acy, and to wave whatever tiiey could lay hold of in the air. 
The country seems very poorly cultivated, the fields full of 
stumps of trees, and the plantation houses very indiffVu-ent. 
At every station more ".soldiers," as they are called, got in, 
till the smell and heat were suffocating. 

These men were as fanciful in their names and dress as 
could be. In the train which preceded us there was a band 
of volunteers armed with rifled pistols and enormous bowie- 
knife>>, who called themselves " The Toothpick Company." 
They carried along with them a coffin, with a plate ins(;ribed, 

"Abe Lincoln, died ," and declared they were " bound " 

to bring his body back in it, and that they did not intend to 
use muskets or rifles, but just go in with knife and six-shooter, 
and whip the Yankees straiglit away. How astonished they 
will be when the first round shot flies into them, or a cap-full 
of grape rattles about their bowie-knives. 

At the station of Grand Junction, north of Molly Springs, 
which latter is 210 miles north of Jackson, several hundreds 
of our warrior friends were turned out in order to take the 
train north-westward for Richmond, Virginia. The 1st Com- 
pany, seventy rank and file, consisted of Irishmen, armed witli 
sporting rifles without bayonets. Five sixths of the 2d 
Com{)any, who were armed with muskets, were of the same 
nationality. The 3d Company were all Americans. The 
4lh Company were almost all Irish. Some were in green, 
others were in gray, — the Americans who were in blue had not 
yet received their arms. When the word fix bayonets was 
given by the officer, a smart keen-looking man, there was an 
astonishishing hurry and tumult in the ranks. 

"Now then. Sweeny, whar are yes dhriven me too? Is it 
out of the redjmint amongst the officers yer shovin' me? " 

" Sullivan, don't ye hear we're to fix beenits ? " 

" Sarjent, jewel, wud yes ayse the shtraj) of me baynit ? " 

" If ye prod me wid that agin, I'll let dayloite into ye." 

The olRcer, reading, " No. 23. James Phelan." 

No reply. 

Officer again, " No. 23. James Phelan." 

Voice from the rank, " Sliure, captain, and faix Phelan's 
gone ; he wirit at the last depot." 

" No. 40. Miles Corrigan." 

Voice furtner on, " He's the worse for dhrink in the cars. 



304 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

yer honor, and says he'll shoot us if we touch him;" and 
ho on. 

lint these fellows were, nevertheless, the material for 
fifj^hting and for marehing ixi'Un- proper drill and with good 
ollicers, even though there was too large a ))roportion of old 
men and young lads in tiie ranks. To judge from their dress 
these recruits came from the laboring and poorest classes of 
whites. The officers aU'ected a French cut and bearing with 
indifferent success, and in the luggage vans there were thi-ee 
foolish young women with slop-dress imitation clothes of the 
Vivandiere type, who, with dishevelled haii', dirty faces, and 
dusty hats and jackets, looked sad, sorry, and absurd. Tlieir 
notions of propriety did not justify them in adopting straps, 
boots, and trousers, and the rest of the tawdry ill-made costume 
looked very bad indeed. 

Tlie train which still bore a large number of soldiers for the 
camp of Corinth, pi'oceeded through dreary swamps, stunted for- 
ests, and clearings of the rudest kind at very long intervals. We 
had got out of tlie cotton district and were entering poorer soil, 
or land which, when cleared, was devoted to wheat and corn, 
and I was told that the crops ran from forty to sixty busiiels 
to the acre. A more uidnteresting country than this portion 
of the State of Mississi})pi I have never witnessed. There 
was some variety of scenery about Holly Springs where 
undulating ground covered with wood, diversified the aspect of 
the flat, but since that we have been travelling through mile 
after mile of insignilicantly grown timber and swamps. 

On approacliing Memphis the line ascends towards the 
bluff of the Mississi{)pi, and farms of a better ap[)earance 
come in sight on the side of the rail ; but after all 1 do not 
envy the fate of the man who, surrounded by slaves and shut 
out from the world, has to pass his life in this dismal region, 
be the crops never so good. 

At a station where a stone pillar marks the limit between 
the sovereign State of Mississi})pi and that of Tennessee, 
there was a house two stories high, from the windows of 
which a number of negro girls and young men were staring 
on the passengers. Some of them smiled, laughed, and chat- 
ted, but the majority of them looked gloomy and sad enough. 
They were packed as close as they could, and I observed that 
at the door a very ruffianly looking fellow in a straw hat, long 
straight hair, flannel shirt, and slippers, was standing with his 
legs across and a heavy whip in his hand. One of the pas- 



MEMPHIS. 305 

sengers walked over and chatted to him. They looked in 
and up at the negroes and laughed, and when the man came 
near tiie carriage in which I sat, a friend called out, "Whose 
are tiiey, Sam?" " He's a dealer at Jackson, Mr. Smith. 
They're a prime lot of" line Virginny niggers as I've seen this 
long time, and he wants to realize, for the news looks so 
bad." 

It was 1"40 v. M. when the train arrived at Memphis. I 
was speedily on my way to the Gayoso House, so called after 
an old Spanish ruler of the district, which is situated in the 
street on the bluff, which runs parallel with the course of the 
Mississippi. This resuscitated Egyptian city is a place of im- 
portance, and extends for several miles along the high bank 
of the river, though it does not run very far back. The 
streets are at right angles to the principal thoroughfares, 
which are parallel to the stream ; and I by no means ex- 
pected to see the lofty stores, warehouses, rows of shops, and 
handsome buildings on the broad esplanade along the river, 
and the extent and size of the edifices public and private in 
this city, whi(;h is one of the developments of trade and com- 
merce crrated by the Mississippi. Memphis contains nearly 
30,000 inhal)itants, but many of them are foreigners, and 
there is a nomad draft into and out of the place, which 
abounds in haunts for Bohemians, drinking and dancing- 
saloons, and gaming-rooms. And this strange kaleidosco|)e 
of negroes and whites of the extremes of civilization in its 
American develo[)ment, and of the semi-savage degraded by 
his contact with the white ; of enormous steamers on the 
river, which bears equally the dug-out or canoe of the black 
fisherman ; the rail, penetrating the inmost recesses of swamps, 
which on either side of it remain no doubt in the same state 
as they were centuries ago ; the I'oll of heavily-laden wagons 
through the streets ; the rattle of omnibuses and all the phe- 
nomena of active commercial life before our eyes, included in 
the same scope of vision which takes in at the other side of 
the Mississip[)i lands scarcely yet settled, though the march 
of empire has gone thousands of miles beyond them, amuses 
but perplexes the traveller in this new land. 

The evening was so exceedingly warm that I was glad to 
remain within the walls of my darkened bedroom. All the 
six hundred and odd guests whom the Gayoso House is said 
to accommodate were apparently in the passage at one time. 
At present it is the head-quarters of General Gideon J. Pil- 



306 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

low, who is charged with the defences of the Tennessee side 
of the river, and commands a considerable body of troops 
around the city and in the works above. The house is con- 
sequently tilled with men in uniform, belonging to the Gen- 
eral's staff or the various regiments of Tennessee troops. 

The Governors and the Legislatures of the States view with 
dislike every action on the part of Mr. Davis which tends to 
form the State troops into a national army. At first, indeed, 
the doctrine prevailed that troops could not be sent beyond the 
limits of the State in which they were raised — then it was 
argued that they ought not to be called upon to move outside 
tlieir borders ; and I have heard people in the South inveigh- 
ing against the sloth and want of spirit of the Virginians, who 
allowed tiieir State to be invaded without resisting the enemy. 
Such complaints were met by the remark that all the North- 
ern States had combined to pour their troops into Virginia, 
and that her sister States ought in honor to protect her. 
P^inally, the martial enthusiasm of the Southern regiments 
impelled them to press forward to the frontier, and by delicate 
management, and the perfect knowledge of his countrymen 
which Mr. Jefferson Davis possesses, he is now enabled to 
amalgamate in some sort the diverse individualities of his 
regiments into something like a national army. 

On hearing of my arrival, General Pillow sent his aide-de- 
camp to inform me that he was about starting in a steamer up 
the river, to make an inspection of the works and garrison 
at Fort Randolph and at other points where batteries had 
been erected to command the stream, supported by large levies 
of Tennesseans. The aide-de-camp conducted me to the 
General, whom I found in his bedroom, fitted up as an office, 
littered with plans and papers. Before the Mexican War 
General Pillow was a flourishing solicitor, connected in busi- 
ness with President Polk, and commanding so much influence 
that when the expedition was formed he received the nomina- 
tion of brigadier-general of volunteers. He served with dis- 
tinction and was severely wounded at the battle of Chapultepec 
and at the conclusion of the campaign he retired into civil 
life, and was engaged directing the work of his plantation till 
this great rebeUion summoned him once more to the field. 

Of course there is, and must be, always an inclination to de- 
ride tliese volunteer officers on the part of regular soldiers ; 
and 1 was informed by one of the officers in attendance on the 
General that he had made himself ludicrously celebrated ia 



DEFENCES OF MEMPHIS. S07 

Mexico for having undertaken to throw up a battery which, 
when completed, was found to face the wrong way, s(j that the 
guns were exposed to the enemy. General Pillow is a small, 
compact, clear-complexioned man, with sliort gray whiskers, 
cut in the English fashion, a quick eye, and a pompous man- 
ner of si)eech ; and I had not been long in his company be- 
fore I heard of Chapultepec and his wound, which causes hira 
to limp a little in his walk, and gives him inconvenience in 
the saddle. He wore a round black hat, plain blue frock-coat, 
dark trousers, and brass spurs on his boots ; but no sign of 
military rank. The General ordered carriag<\s to the door, 
and we went to see the batteries on the blutt" or front of the 
esplanade, which are intended to check any ship attempting 
to pass down the river from Cairo, where the Federals under 
General Prentiss have entrenched themselves, and are under- 
stood to meditate an ex[)edition against the city. A parapet of 
cotton bales, covered with tarpaulin, has been erected clo-^e to 
the edge of the bank of earth, wiiich rises to heights varying 
from 60 to ITjO feet almost perpendicularly from the waters of the 
Mississippi, with zigzag roads running down through it to the 
landing-places. Tliis |)arapet could offer no cover against 
vertical lire, and is so placed that well-directed shell into the 
bank below it would tumble it all into the water. The zigzag 
roads are barricaded with weak planks, which would be shiv- 
ered to pieces by boat-guns ; and the assaulting parties could 
easily mount through these covered ways to the rear of the 
parapet, and up to tiie very centre of the esplanade. 

The blockade of the river at this point is complete ; not a 
boat is permitted to pass either up or down. At the extrem- 
ity of the esplanade, on an angle of the bank, an earthen 
battery, mounted with six heavy guns, has been thrown up, 
which has a fine command of the river; and the General in- 
formed me he intends to mount sixteen guns in addition, on 
a prolongation of the face of the same work. 

The inspection over, we drove down a steep road to the 
water beneath, where the Ingomar, a large river steamer, 
now chartered for the service of the State of Tennessee, was 
lying to receive us. Tiie vessel was crowded with troops — 
all volunteers, of course — about to join those in camp. Great 
as were their numbers, the proportion of the officers was in- 
ordinately large, and the rank of the greater number pre- 
posterously high. It seemed to me as if I was introduced to 
a battalion of colonels, and that I was not permitted to pierce 



308 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

to any lower stiata of military rank. I counted seventeen 
colonels, and bi'Hevc the number was not then exhausted. 

General Clarke, ot" Mississippi, who had come over from 
the eanip at Corinth, was on board, and 1 had the jdeasure of 
making his acquaintance. Pie spoke with sense and firmness 
of the present troubles, and dealt with the {)oliticaI diiliculties 
in a tone of moderation which bespoke a gentleraaa and a 
man of education and thought. He also had served in the 
Mexican war, and had the air and manner of a soldier. With 
all his quietness of tone, there was not the smallest disposition 
to be traced in his words to retire from the presen^ contest, or 
to consent to a reunion with the United States under any cir- 
cumstances whatever. Another general, of a very different 
type, was among our passengers, — a dirty-faced, frightened- 
looking young man, of some twenty-three or twenty-four 
years of age, redolent of tobacco, his chin and shirt slavered 
by its foul juices, dressed in a green cutaway coat, white jean 
trousers, stnipj)ed under a pair of prunella slippers, in which 
he promenaded the deck in an Agag-like manner, which gave 
rise to a suspicion of bunions or corns. This strange tigure 
was topped by a tremendous black felt sombrero, looped u[) at 
one side by a gilt eagle, in which was stuck a plume of ostrich 
feathers, and from the other side dangled a heavy gold tassel. 
This decrepit young warrior's name was Ruggles or Strug- 
gles, who came from Arkansas, where he passed, I was in- 
formed, for " quite a leading citizen." 

Our voyage as we steamed up the river afforded no novelty, 
nor any jihysical difference worthy of remark, to contrast it 
with the lower portions of the stream, except that upon our 
rigiit-hand side, which is, in effect, the left bank, there are 
ranges of exceedingly high bluffs, some parallel with and 
others at right angles to the course of the; stream. The river 
is of the same pea-soup color with the same masses of leaves, 
decaying vegetation, stumps of trees, forming small floating 
islands, or giant cotton-tree, pines, and balks of timber whirling 
down the current. Our progress was slow ; nor did I regret 
the captain's caution, as there must have been fully nine hun- 
dred |)ersons on board; and although there is but little danger 
of" being snagged in the present condition of the river, we en- 
countered now and then a trunk of a tree, which struck against 
the bows with force Enough to make the vessel quiver frona 
stem to stern. I was furnished with a small berth, to which 
I retired at midnight, just as the Ingomar was brought to at 
the Chickasaw lilufis, above which lies Camp Randolph. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Camp Kandolpli — Cannon practice — Voluntcors — " Dixie " — Forc- 
ed return from tlio SouUi — Apathy of tlie North — (Jeneral re- 
trospect of politics — Knerj^y antl earnestness of the South — 
Fire-arms — Position of Great Hritain towards the belUgerents — 
FceHug towards the Old Country. 

Jane I8th. — On looking out of my cabin window this morning 
I found the steamer fast along-side a small wharf, above which 
rose, to the height of lilO fe(;t, at an angle, of forty-five degrees, 
the rugged bluff already nuMitioued. The wharf was covered 
with commissariat stores and ainmimition. Three heavy guns, 
which some men were endeavoring to sling to ruile bullock- 
carts, in a manner defiant of all the laws of gravitation, seem(;d 
likely to go slap into the water at every moment ; but of the 
many great strapping fellows who were lounging about, not one 
gave a hand to tlie working party. A dusty track wound up 
the hill to the brow, and there disappeared ; and at the height 
of fifty feet or so above the level of the river two earthworks 
had been rudely enscted in an ineffe(;tive position. Tiie vol- 
unteers who were lounging about the edge of the stream were 
dressed in ditlerent ways, and had no uniform. 

Already the heat of the sun compelled me to seek the shade ; 
and a numlxn- of the soldiers, laboring under the same infat- 
uation as that which induces little boys to disport themselves 
in the Thames at Waterloo Bridg(% under the notion that they 
are washing themselves, were swimming about in a back- 
water of the great river, regardless of cat-fish, mud, and 
fever. 

General Pillow proceeded on shore after breakfast, and we 
mounted the coarse cart-horse chargers which were in wait- 
ing at the jetty to receive us. It is scarcely worth while to 
transcribe} from my diary a description of the works which I 
sent over at the time to England. Certaiidy, a more extraor- 
dinary maze could not be conceived, even in the dreams of a 



310 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

sick ensfineer — a number of mad beavers might possibly con- 
struct such dams. Tliey were so ingeniously made a-^ to pre- 
vent the troops engaged in their defence from resisting the 
enemy's attacks, or getting away from them when the assail- 
ants had got inside — most dilRcult and troublesome to de- 
fend, and still more difficult for the defenders to leave, the 
latter perhaps being their chief merit. 

The General ordered some practice to be made with round 
shot down the river. An old forty-two pound carronade was 
loaded with some diificulty, and pointed at a ti'ee about 1700 
yards — which I was told, however, was not less than 2500 
yards — distant. The General and his staff took their posts 
on the parapet to leeward, and I ventured to say, " 1 think, 
General, the smoke will prevent your seeing the shot." To 
which the General replied, " No, sir," in a tone which indi- 
cated, " I beg you to understand I have been wounded in 
Mexico, and know all about this kind of thing." " Fire ! " The 
string was pulled, and out of the touch-hole popped a piece of 
metal with a little chirrup. "Darn these friction tubes! I 
prefer the linstock antl match," quoth one of the staff, sotto 
voce, " but General Pillow will have us use friction tubes 
made at Memphis, that ar'n't worth a cuss." Tube No. 2, 
however, did explode, but where the ball went no one could 
say, as the smoke drifted right into our eyes. 

The General then moved to the other side of the gun, 
which was fired a third time, the shot falling short in good 
line, but without any ricochet. Gun No. 3 was next fired. 
Off went the ball down the river, but off went the gun, too, 
and with a frantic leap it jumped, carriage and all, clean off 
the platform. Nor was it at all wondei'ful, for the poor old- 
fashioned chamber carronade had been loaded with a charge 
and a solid shot heavy enough to make it burst with indigna- 
tion. Most of us felt relieved when the firing was over, and, 
for my own part, I would much rather have been close to the 
target than to the battery. 

Slowly winding for some distance up the steep road in a 
blazing sun, we proceeded through the tents which are scat- 
tered in small groups, for health's sake, fifteen; and twenty to- 
gether, on the wooded plateau above the river. The tents 
are of the small ridge-pole pattern, six men to each, many of 
whom, from their exposure to the sun, whilst working in these 
trenches, and from the badness of the water, had already been 
laid up with illness. As a proof of General Pillow's energy, 



RATIONS AND EQUIPMENT. 311 

it is only fair to say he is constructing, on the very summit of 
the plateau, large cisterns, which will be filled with water 
from the river by steam power. 

The volunteers were mostly engaged at drill in distinct 
companies, but by order of the General some 700 or 800 of 
them were formed into line for inspection. Many of these 
men were in their shirt sleeves, and the awkwardness with 
which they handled their arms showed that, however good 
they might be as shots, they were bad hands at manual pla- 
toon exercise ; but such great strapping fellows, that, as I 
walked down the ranks there were few whose shoulders were 
not above the level of my head, excepting here and there a 
weedy old man or a growing lad. They were armed with old 
pattern percussion muskets, no two clad alike, many very 
badly shod, few with knapsacks, but all provided with a tin 
water-flask and a blanket. These men have been only five 
weeks enrolled, and were called out by the State of Tennes- 
see, in anticipation of the vote of secession. 

I could get no exact details as to the supply of food, but 
from the Quartermaster-General I heard that each man had 
from fib. to Ij- lb. of meat, and a sufficiency of bread, sugar, 
coffee, and rice daily ; however, these military Olivers " asked 
for more." Neither whiskey nor tobacco was served out to 
them, which to such heavy consumers of both, must prove one 
source of dissatisfaction. The officers were plain, farmerly 
planters, merchants, lawyers, and the like — energetic, de- 
termined men, but utterly ignorant of the most rudimentary 
parts of military science. It is this want of knowledge on the 
part of the officer which renders it so difficult to arrive at a 
tolerable condition of discipline among volunteers, as the 
privates are quite well aware they know as much of soldiering 
as the great majority of their officers. 

Having gone down the lines of these motley companies, 
the General addressed them in a harangue in which he 
expatiated on their patriotism, on their courage, and the 
atrocity of the enemy, in an odd farrago of military and 
political subjects. But the only matter which appeared to 
interest them much was the announcement that they would be 
released from work in another day or so, and that negroes would 
be sent to perform all that was required. This announcement 
was received with the words, " Bully for us ! " and " That's 
good." And when General Pillow wound up a florid peroration 
by assuring them, " When the hour of danger comes I will be 



312 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH, 

with you," the effect was by no means equal to his expecta- 
tions. The men did not seem to care much whether General 
Pillow was with them or not at that eventful moment ; and, 
indeed, all dusty as lie was in his plain clothes he did not look 
very imposing, or give one an idea that he would contribute 
much to the means of resistance. However, one of the officers 
called out, " Boys, three cheers for General Pillow." 

What they may do in the North I know not, but certainly 
the Southern soldiers cannot cheer, and what passes muster for 
that jubilant sound is a shrill ringing scream with a touch of 
the Indian war-whoop in it. As tiiese cries ended, a stentorian 
voice shouted out, " Who cares for General Pillow ? " No one 
auswered ; whence I inferred the General would not be very 
popular until the niggers were actually at work in the 
trenches. 

We I'eturned to the steamer, headed up stream, and pro- 
ceeded onwards for more than an hour, to another landing, 
protected by a battery, where we disembarked, the General 
being received by a guard dressed in uniform, who turned out 
with some appearance of soldierly smartness. On my re- 
marking the difference to the General, he told me the corps 
encamped at this point was com{)osed of gentlemen planters, 
and farmers. They had all clad themselves, and consisted 
of some of the best families in the State of Tennessee. 

As we walked down the gangway to the shore, the band on 
the upper deck struck up, out of compliment to the English 
element in the party, the unaccustomed strains of " God save 
the Queen ! " and I am not quite sure that the loyalty which 
induced me to stand in the sun, with uncovei-ed head, till the 
musicians were good enough to desist, was appreciated. Cer- 
tainly a gentleman, who asked me why I did so, looked very 
incredulous, and said " That he could understand it if it had 
been in a church ; but that he would not broil his skull in the 
sun, not if General Washington was standing just before him." 
The General gave orders to exercise the battery at this point, 
and a working party was told off to firing drill. 'Twas fully 
six minutes between the giving of the orders and the first gun 
being ready. 

On the word " fire " being given, the gunner pulled the lan- 
yard, but the tube did not exi)lode ; a second tube 'was in- 
sei-ted, but a strong jerk pulled it out without exploding ; a 
third time one of the General's fuses was applied, which gave 
way to the pull, and was broken in two ; a fourth time was 



" DIXIE." Sl^ 

more successful — the gun exploded, and the shot fell short 
and under the mark — in fact, nothing could be worse than 
the artillery practice which I saw here, and a fleet of vessels 
coming down the river might, in the present state of the gar- 
risons, escape unhurt. 

There are no disparts, tangents, or elevating screws to the 
gun, which are laid by eye and wooden chocks. I could see 
no shells in the battery, but was told there were some in the 
magazine. 

Altogether, though Randolph's Point and Fort Pillow afFord 
strong positions, in the present state of the service, and equip- 
ment of guns and works, gunboats could run past them with- 
out serious loss, and, as the river falls, the fire of the batteries 
will be even less effective. 

On returning to the boats the band struck up " The Mar- 
seillaise " and " Dixie's Land." There are two explanations 
of the word Dixie — one is that it is the general term for the 
Slave States, which are, of course, south of Mason and Dix- 
on's line ; another, that a planter named Dixie, died long ago, 
to the intense grief of his animated property. Whether th'ey 
were ill-treated after he died, and thus had reason to regret 
his loss, or that they had merely a longing in the abstract 
after Heaven, no fact known to me can determine ; but cer- 
tain it is that they long much after Dixie, in the land to which 
his spirit was supposed by them to have departed, and console • 
themselves in their sorrow by clamorous wishes to follow their 
master, where probably tlie revered spirit would be much sur- 
prised to find himself in their company. The song is the work 
of the negro melodists of New York. 

In the afternoon we returned to Memphis. Here I was 
obliged to cut short my Southern tour, though I would will- 
ingly have stayed, to have seen the most remarkable social 
and political changes the world has probably ever witnessed. 
The necessity of my position obliged me to return northwards 
— unless I could write, there was no use in my being on the 
spot at all. By this time the Federal fleets have succeeded in 
closmg the ports, if not effectually, so far as to render the car- 
nage of letters precarious, and the route must be at best devi- 
ous and uncertain. 

Mr, Jefferson Davis was, I was assured, prepared to give 

me every facility at Richmond to enable me to know and to 

see all that was most interesting in the military and political 

action of the New Confederacy ; but of what use could this 

14 



314 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

knowledge be if I could ixot communicate it (o the journal I 
served ? 

I had left tlie North when it was suff(!ring from a political 
paraly>is, and was in a state of coma in which it appeared 
conscious of the coming convulsion but unable to avert it. 
The sole sign of lite in the body corporate was some feeble 
twitcliing of tiie limbs at Wasliington, when the district mili- 
tia were called out, whilst Mr. Seward descanted on the mer- 
its of the Inaugural, and believed that the anger of the South 
was a short madness, which would be cured by a mild appli- 
cation of pliilosophical essays. 

The politicians, wiio were urging in the most forcible man- 
ner the couiplete vindication of the rigiits of the Union, were 
engaged, when 1 left them arguing, that the Union had no 
rights at all as opposed to those of the States. Men who had 
heard with nods of approval of the ordinance of secession 
passed by State after State were now shrieking out, " Slay the 
traitors ! " 

The printed rags which had been deriding the President as 
the great " rail-splitter," and his Cabinet as a collection of ig- 
noble fanatics, were now heading the popular rush, and call- 
ing out to the country to sup|)ort Mr. Lincoln and his Minis- 
try, and were menacing with war the foreign States which 
darixl to stand neutral in the quarrel. The declaration of 
. Lord John Russell that the Southern Confederacy should 
have limited belligerent rights had at first created a thrill of 
exultation in the South, because the politicians believed that 
in this concession was contained the i)rinciple of recognition ; 
while it had stung to fury the people of the North, to whom 
it seemed the first warning of the coming disunion. 

Much, therefore, as I desired to go to Richmond, where I 
was urged to repair by many considerations, and by the ear- 
nest appeals of those around me, I felt it would be impossible, 
notwithstanding the interest attached to the proceedings there, 
to perform my ihities in a place cut off from all communica- 
tion with the outer world ; and so 1 decided to proceed to 
Chicago, and thence to Washington, where the Federals had 
assembled a large army, with the purpose of marching upon 
Richmond, in obedience to the cry of nearly every journal of 
infiuence in the Northern cities. 

My resolution was mainly foitned in consequence of the in- 
telligence which was comnumicated to me at Memphis, and I 
told General Pillow that I would continue my journey to 



I 



SOUTHERN UNANIMITY. 315 

Cairo, in order to get within the Federal lines. As the river 
was bloekaded, the only means of doing so was to proceed by 
rail to Colnmbus, and thence to take a steamer to tiie Federal 
{)osition; and so, whilst the General was continuing his inspec- 
tion, I rode to the telegraph office, in one of the camps, to order 
my luggage to be pi-ej)ared lor departure as soon as I arrived, 
and thence went on board the steamer, where I sat down in 
the cabin to write my last des|)atch from Dixie. 

So far I had certainly no reason to agre(! with Mr. Seward 
in thinking this rebellion was the result of a localized ener- 
getic action on the part of a fierce minority in the seceding 
States, and that there was in each a large, if inert, mass op- 
posed to secession, which would rally round the Stars and 
Stripes the instant they were displayed in their sight. On the 
contrary, I met everywhere with but one feeling, with exce[)- 
tions which proved its unanimity and its fljrce. To a man the 
people went with their States, and had but on(! battle cry, 
" States' rights, and death to those who make war against 
them ! " 

Day after day I had seen this feeling intensified by the 
accounts which came from the North of a fixed determination 
to maintain the war ; and day after day, I am bound to add, 
the im})ression on my mind was strengthened that "States' 
rights " meant pioteclion to slavery, extension of slave terri- 
tory, and free-trade in slave produce with the outer world ; 
nor was it any argument against the conclusion that the 
popuhir passion gave vent to the most vehement outcries 
against Yankees, abolitionists, German mercenaries, and mod- 
ern invasion. I was fidly satisfied in my mind also that the 
population of the Soutii, who had taken up arms, were so 
convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and so com- 
petent to vindicate it, that they would fight with the utmost 
energy and valor in its defence and suc('essful establishment. 

The saloon in which I was sitting afforded abundant evi- 
dence of the vigor with which the South are entering upon 
the contest. Men of every variety and condition of life had 
taken up arms against the cursed Yankee and the lilack R(?pub- 
lican — there was not a man there who would not have given 
his life for the rare pleasure of striking Mr. Lincoln's head 
off his shoulders, and yet to a cold Kuropean the scene was 
almost ludicrous. • 

Along the covered deck lay tall Tennesseans, asleep, whose 
plumed felt hats were generally the oidy indications of their 



316 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

martial calling, for few indeefl had any other signs of uniform, 
except the rare volunteers, wlio wore stripes of red and 
yellow cloth on their trousers, or leaden buttons, and discolored 
worsted braid and facings on their jackets. The afterpart 
of the saloon deck was appropriated to General Pillow, his 
staff, and officers. The ap[)roach to it was guarded by a 
sentry, a tall, good-looking young fellow in a gray flannel 
shirt, gray trousers, listened with a belt and a brass buckle, 
inscribed U. S., which came from some plundered Federal 
arsenal, and a black wide-awake hat, decorated with a green 
plume. Hi.s Enfield rifle lay beside him on the deck, and, 
with great interest expressed on his face, he leant forward in 
liis rocking-chair to watch the varying features of a party 
squatted on the floor, who were em{)loyed in the national 
game of " Euchre." As he raised his eyes to examine the 
condition of the cigsu' he was smoking, he caught sight of mc, 
and by the simple expedient of holding his leg across my 
chest, and calling out, '' Hallo ! where are you going to ? " 
brought me to a standstill — whilst his captain who was one 
of the happy euchreists, exclaimed, "Now, Sam, you let 
nobody go in there." 

I was obliged to explain who I was, whereupon the sentry 
start(3d to his feet, and said, " Oh ! indeed, you are Russell 
that's been in that war with the Rooshians. Well, I'm very 
much pleased to know you. I shall be off sentry in a few 
minutes ; I'll just ask you to tell me something about that 
fighting." He held out his hand, and shook mine wai'mly as 
he spoke. There was not the smallest intention to offend in 
his manner ; but, sitting down again, he nodded to the cap- 
tain, and said, "It's all right; it's Pillow's friend — that's 
Russell of the London ' Times.' " The game of euchre was 
continued — and indeed it had been perhaps all night — for 
my last recollection on looking out of my cabin was of a number 
of people playing cards on the floor and on the tables all 
down the saloon, and of shouts of " Eu-kerr ! " " Ten dollars, 
you don't!" "I'll lay twenty on this!" and so on; and with 
breakfast the sport seemed to be fully revived. 

There would have been much more animation in the game, 
no doubt, had the bar on board the Ingomar been Opened ; 
but the intelligent gentleman who presided inside had been 
restricted by General Pillow in his avocations ; and when 
numerous thirsty souls from the camps came on board, with 
dry tongues and husky voices, and asked for " mint-juleps," 



"THE INGOMAR." 317 

"bi-andy smashes," or " whiskey cocktails," he seemed to take 
a saturnine pleasure by saying, " The General won't allow no 
spirit on board, but I can {^ive you a nice drink of Pillow's 
own iced Mississippi water," an announcement which generally 
caused infinite disgust and some unhandsome wishes respect- 
ing the General's future happiness. 

By and by, a number of sick men were brought down on 
litters, and placed here and there along the deck. As there 
was a considerable misunderstanding between the civilian and 
military doctors, it appeared to be understood that the best 
way of arranging it was not to attend to the sick at all, and 
unfortunate men suffering from fever and dysentery were left 
to roll and groan, and lie on their stretchers, without a soul to 
help them. I had a medicine chest on board, and I ventured 
to use the lessons of my experience in such matters, adminis- 
tered my quinine, James's Powder, calomel, and opium, 
secundum meain artem, and nothing could be more grateful than 
the poor fellows were for the smallest mark of attention. 
" Stranger, remember, if I die," gasped one great fellow, 
attenuated to a skeleton by dysentery, " That I am Robert 
Tallon, of Tishimingo county, and that I died for States' 
rights ; see, now, tliey put that in the papers, won't you ? 
Robert Tallon died for States' rights," and so he turned round 
on his blanket. 

Presently the General came on board, and the Ingomar 
proceeded on her way back to Memphis. General Clarke, to 
whom I mentioned the great neglect from which the soldiers 
were suffering, told me he was afraid the men had no medical 
attendance in camp. All the doctors, in fact, wanted to fight, 
and as they were educated men, and generally connected with 
respectable families, or had political influence in the State, 
they aspired to be colonels at the very least, and to wield the 
sword instead of the scalpel. 

Next to the medical department, the commissariat and trans- 
port were most deficient ; but by constant courts-martial, 
stoppages of pay, and severe sentences, he hoped these evils 
would be eventually somewhat mitigated. As one who had 
received a regular military education. General Clarke was 
probably shocked by volunteer irrcguhiriiies ; and in such 
matters as guard-mounting, reliefs, pati'ols, and picket duties, 
he declared they were enough to break one's heart; but I was 
astonished to hear from him that the Germans were by far the 
worst of the five thousand troops under his command, of whom 
they formed more than a fifth. 



318 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

"Whilst we were conversing, the captain of the steamer in- 
vited us to come up into his cabin on the upper deck ; and as 
railway conductors, steamboat captains, bar-keepers, hotel 
clerks, and telegraph officers are among the natural aristocracy 
of the land, we could not disobey the invitation, which led to 
the consumption of some of the captain's private stores, and 
many warm professions of political faith. 

The captain told me it was rough work aboard sometimes, 
with " sports " and chaps of that kind ; but " God bless you ! " 
said he, " the river now is not what it used to be a few years 
ago, when we'd have three or four difficulties of an afternoon, 
and maybe now and then a regular free fight all up and down 
the decks, that would last a couple of hours, so that when we 
came to a town we would have to send for all the doctors 
twenty miles round, and maybe some of them would die in 
spite of that. It was the rowdies used to get these fights up ; 
but we've put them pretty well down. The citizens have 
hunted thom out, and they's gone away west." " Well, then, 
captain, one's life was not very safe on board sometimes." 
" Safe ! Lord bless you ! " said the captain ; " if you did not 
meddle, just as safe as you are now, if the boiler don't collapse. 
You must, in course, know how to handle your weepins, and 
be pretty spry in taking your own part." " Ho, you Bill ! " 
to his colored servant, " open that clothes-press." " Now, 
here," he continued, " is how I travel ; so that I am always 
easy in my mind in case of trouble on board." Putting his 
hand under the pillow of the bed close beside him, he pulled 
out a foi'midable looking double-barrelled pistol at half-cock, 
with the caps upon it. " That's as purty a pistol as Derringer 
ever made. I've got the brace of them — here's the other ; " 
and with that he whi{)ped out pistol No. 2, in an equal state 
of forwardness, from a little shelf over his bed ; and t!ien go- 
ing over to the clothes-press, he said, " Here's a real old Ken- 
tuck, one of the old sort, as light on the trigger as gossamer, 
and sure as deeth. Why, law bless me, a child would cut a 
turkey's head off with it at a hundred yai"ds." This was a 
huge lump of iron, about five feet long with a small liole bored 
down the centre, fitted in a coarse German-fashioned stock. 
" But," continued he, " this is my main dependence ; here is a 
regular beauty, a first-rate, with ball or buckshot, or whatever 
you like — ■ made in London. I gave two hundred dollar* for 
it ; and it is so short and handy, and straight shooting, I'd just 
as soon pait with my life as let it go to anybody ; " and, with a 



GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 

glow of pride in his face, the captain handed round again a 
very short double-barrelled gun, of some eleven or twelve 
bore, with back-action locks, and an audacious " Joseph Man- 
ton, London," st^imped on the plate. Tiie manner of the man 
was perfectly simple and bo7iu fide ; very much as if Inspec- 
tor Pddger were revealing to a simpleton the mode by which 
the London police managed refractory charactei'S in the sta- 
tion-house. 

From such matters as these I was diverted by the more 
serious subject of the attitude taken by England in this quarrel. 
The ajncession of belligerent rights was, I found, misunder- 
stood, and was considered as an admission that the Southern 
States had established their independence before they had 
done more than declare their intention to fight for it. 

It is not within ray power to determine whether the North 
is as unfair to Great Britain as the South ; but I fear the 
history of the people, and the tendency of their institutions, 
are adverse to any hope of fair-play and justice to the old 
country. And yet it is the oidy power in Europe for the good 
opinion of which they really seem to care. Let any French, 
Austrian, or Russian journal write what it pleases of the 
United States, it is received witii indifferent criticism or callous 
head-shaking. But let a London paper speak, and the whole 
American press is delighted or furious. 

The political sentiment quite overrides all other feelings ; 
and it is the only symptom statesmen should care about, as it 
guides the policy of the country. If a man can put faith in 
the influence for peace of common interests, of common origin, 
common intentions, with the spectacle of this incipient war 
before his eyes, he must be incapable of appreciating the con- 
sequences which follow from man being an animal. A war 
between England and the United States would be unnatural ; 
but it would not be nearly so unnatural now as it was when it 
was actually waged in 177G between people who were barely 
separated from each other by a single generation ; or in 1812— 
14, when the foreign immigration had done comparatively little 
to dilute the Anglo-Saxon blood. The Norman of Hampshire 
and Sussex did not care much for the ties of consanguinity 
and race when he followed his lord in fee to ravage Guienne 
or Brittany. 

The general result of my intercourse with Americans is to 
produce the notion that they consider Great Britain in a state 
of corruption and decay, and eagerly seek to exalt France at 



320 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

her expense. Their language is the sole link between Eng- 
land and the United States, and it only binds the England of 
1770 to the American of 1860. 

There is scarcely an American on either side of Mason and 
Dixon's line who does not religiously believe that tlie colonies, 
alone and single-handed, encountered the Avhole undivided 
force of Great Britain in the Revolution, and defeated it. I 
mean, of course, the vast mass of the people ; and I do not 
think there is an orator or a writer who would venture to tell 
them the truth on the subject. Again, they firmly believe that 
their petty frigate engagements estabHshed as complete a naval 
ascendency over Great Britain as the latter obtained by her 
great encounters with the fleets of France and Spain. Their 
reverses, defeats and headlong routs in the first war, their 
reverses in the second, are covered over by a huge Buncombe 
plaster, made up of Bunker's Hill, Plattsburg, Baltimore, and 
New Orleans. 

Their delusions are increased and solidified by the extraor- 
dinary text-books of so-called history, and by the feasts and 
festivals and celebrations of their every-day political life, in 
all of which we pass through imaginary Caudine Forks ; and 
they entertain towards the old country at best very much the 
feeling which a high-spirited young man would feel towards 
the guardian who, when he had come of age, and was free 
from all control, sought to restrain the passions of his early 
life. 

Now I could not refuse to believe that in New Orleans, 
Montgomery, Mobile, Jackson, and Memphis there is a reck- 
less and violent condition of society, unfavorable to civilization, 
and but little hopeful for the future. The most absolute and 
despotic rule, under which a man's life and property are safe, 
is better than the largest measure of democratic freedom, 
which deprives the freeman of any security for either. The 
state of legal protection for the most serious interests of man, 
considered as a civilized and social creature, which prevails in 
America, could not be tolerated for an instant, and would gen- 
erate a revolution in the worst governed country in Europe. 
I would much sooner, as the accidental victim of a generally 
disorganized police, be plundered by a chance diligence robber 
in Mexico, or have a fair figlit with a Greek Klepht, suffer 
from Italian banditti, or be garrotted by a London ticket-of- 
leave man, than be bowie-knived or revolvered in consequence 
of a political or personal difference with a man, who is certain 



KENTUCKY NEUTRAL. 321 

not in the least degree to suffer from an accidental success in 
his argument. 

On our return to the hotel I dined with the General and 
his staff at the public table, where there was a large assem- 
blage of military men, Southern ladies, their faraiHes, and 
contractors. This latter race has risen up as if by magic, to 
meet the wants of the new Confederacy ; and it is significant 
to measure the amount of the dependence on Northern manu- 
facturers by the advertisements in the Southern journals, in- 
dicating the creation of new branches of workmanship, me- 
chanical science, and manufacturing skill. 

Hitherto they have been dependent on the North for the 
very necessaries of their industrial life. These States were 
so intent on gathering in money for their produce, expending 
it luxuriously, and paying it out for Northern labor, that they 
found themselves suddenly in the condition of a child brought 
up by hand, whose nurse and mother have left it on the steps 
of the poor-house. But they have certainly essayed to rem- 
edy the evil and are endeavoring to make steam-engines, gun- 
powder, lamps, clothes, boots, railway carriages, steel springs, 
glass, and all the smaller articles for which even Southern 
households find a necessity. 

The peculiar character of this contest develops itself in a 
manner almost incomprehensible to a sti'anger who has been 
accustomed to regard the United States as a nation. Here 
is General Pillow, for example, in the State of Tennessee, 
commanding the forces of the State, which, in effect, belongs 
to the Southern Confederacy ; but he tells me that he cannot 
venture to move across a certain geographical line, dividing 
Tennessee from Kentucky, because the State of Kentucky, 
in the exercise of its sovereign powers and rights, which the 
Southern States are bound specially to respect, in virtue of 
their championship of States' rights, has, hke the United King- 
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, declared it will be neutral 
in the struggle ; and Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the afore- 
said State, has warned off Federal and Confederate troops 
from his territory. 

General Pillow is particularly indignant with the cowardice 
of the well-known Secessionists of Kentucky ; but I think he 
is rather more annoyed by the accumulation of Federal troops 
at Cairo, and their recent expedition to Columbus on the Ken- 
tucky shore, a little below them, where they seized a Confed- 
erate flag. 

14* 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Heavy Bill — Railway travelling — Introduotions — Assassinations — 
Tennessee — " Corinth " — " Troy " — " Ilumbolt " — " Tiic Con- 
fedei'ate Camp " — Keturn Northwards — Columbus — Cairo — The 
Slavery Question — Prospects of the War — Coarse Journivlisra. 

June \^th — It is probable the liindlord of the Gayoso 
House was a strong Secessionist, and resolved, therefore, to 
make the most out of a neutral customer like myself — cer- 
tainly Herodotus would have been astonished if he were 
called upon to pay the little bill which was presented to me in 
the modern Memphis ; and had the old Egyptian hostelries 
been conducted on the same principles as those of the Ten- 
nessean Memphis, the "Father of History" would have had 
to sell off a good many editions in order to pay his way. I 
had to rise at three o'clock A. M., to reach the train, which 
started before five. The omnibus which took us to the station 
was literally nave deep in the dust ; and of all the bad roads and 
dusty streets I have yet seen in the New World, where both 
prevail, North and South, those of Memphis are the worst. 
Indeed, as the citizen, of Hibernian birth, who presided over 
the luggage of the passengers on the roof, declared, " The 
streets are paved with waves of mud, only the mud is all dust 
when it's fine weather." 

By the time I had arrived at the station my clothes were 
covered with a fine alluvial deposit in a state of powder ; the 
platform was crowded with volunteei's moving off for the wars, 
and I was obliged to take my place in a carriage full of Con- 
federate oificers and soldiers who had a large supply of 
whiskey, which at that early hour they were consuming as a 
prophylactic against the influence of the morning dews, 
which hereabouts are of such a deadly character that, to be 
quite safe from their influence, it appears to be necessary, 
judging from the examples of my companions, to get as 
nearly drunk as possible. Wliibkey, by-the-by, is also a sov- 
ereign specific against the bites of rattle-snakes. All the 



FUIKNDS ON THE I'LATFOKIM. 823 

dews of tlu! Mississippi ami the riittlo-sniikes of the prairie 
niiglil liav(; spent their force or venom in vain on my compan- 
ions before we had got as far as Union City. 

I was evidently regarded with considerabk^ snspicion by my 
fellow passengers, when they heard 1 was going to Cairo, 
until the condnctor obligingly informed (hem who 1 was, 
wherenpon I was mueh entreated to fortify myself against the 
dews and rattle-snakes, and received many offers of service 
and kindness. 

Whatever may be the normal comforts of American rail- 
way cars, they are certainly most unpleasant conveyancers 
when the war spirit is abroad, and the; heat of the day, which 
was ex(tessiv(s did not contribute to diminish the aimoyance 
of foul air — the odor of whiskey, tobacco, and the like, com- 
bined with innumerable flies. At Ilumboll, which is eighty- 
two miles away, there was a change of cars, and an oppor- 
tunity of obtaining some refreshment, — the station was 
crowded by great lunnbers of men and women dressed in their 
best, who were making holiday in order to visit Union City, 
forty-six mihrs distant, where a force of Tenness(>an and Mis- 
sissippi regiments are encamped. The ladies boldly advanced 
into carriages which were (piite full, and as they looked (piite 
prepared to sit down on the occupants of the seats if they did 
not move, and to destroy them with all-absorbing articles of 
feminine warfare, either defensive or aggressive, and crush 
them with iron-bound crinolines, llu'y soon drove us out into 
the broiling sun. 

Whilst I was on the ]>latform I underwent the usual pro- 
cess of American introduction, not, 1 fear, very good humor- 
edly. A gtsntleman whom you never saw before in your life, 
Avalks up to you and says, " 1 am ha|)py to see you among us, 
sir," and if he (iiids a hand wandering about, he shakers it 
cordially. "My name is .Jones, sir, .Judge .lones of Pumpkin 
County. Any information about this place or State that I 
can give is quite at your service." This is all very civil and 
well meant of Jones, but before you have made up your niind 
what to say, or on what matter to test tlu; worth of his prof- 
fered information, he darts off and seizes one of tlu; group 
who have been watching Jones's advance, and comes forward 
with a tall man, like himself, busily engaged with a piece of 
tobacco. " Colonel, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. 
liussell. This, sir, is one of our leading citizens, C'olonel 
Knags." Whereupon the Colonel shakes hands, uses nearly 



324 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the same formula as Judge Jones, immediately returns to his 
friends, and cuts in before Jones is back with other friends, 
whom he is hurrying up the platform, introduces General 
Cassias Mudd and Dr. Ordlando Bellows, who go through 
the same ceremony, and as each man has a circle of his own, 
my acquaintance becomes prodigiously extended, and my 
liand considerably tortured in the sj)ace of a few minutes ; 
finally I am introduced to the driver of the engine and the 
stoker, but they proved to be acquaintances not at all to be 
despised, for they gave me a seat on the engine, which was 
really a boon, considering that the train was crowded beyond 
endurance, and in a state of internal nastiness scarcely con- 
ceivable. 

When I had got up on the engine a gentleman clambered 
after me in order to have a little conversation, and he turned 
out to be an intelligent and clever man well acquainted with 
the people and the country. I had been much impressed by 
the account in the Memphis papers of the lawlessness and 
crime which seemed to prevail in the State of Mississippi, 
and of the brutal shootings and stabbings which disgraced it 
and other Southern States. He admitted it was true, but 
could not see any remedy. "Wliynot?" "Well, sir, the 
rowdies have rushed in on us, and we can't master them ; 
they are too strong for the res[)ectable people." " Then you 
admit the law is nearly [)owerless ? " " Well, you see, sir, 
these men have got hold of the people who ought to adminis- 
ter the law, and when they fail to do so they are so powerful 
by reason of their numbers, and so reckless, they have things 
their own way." 

" In etl'ect, then, you are living under a reign of terror, 
and the rule of a ruilian mob ? " " It's not quite so bad as 
that, perhaps, for the respectable people are not much attected 
by it, and most of the crimes of which you speak are com- 
mitted by these bad classes in their own section ; but it is 
disgraceful to have such a state of things, and when this war 
is over, and we have started the confederacy all fair, we'll 
]Mit the whole thing down. We are quite determined to take 
the law into our own hands, and the first remedy for the con- 
dition of affairs which', we all lament, will be to confine the 
suffrage to native-born Americans, and to get rid of the infa- 
njous, scoundrelly foreigners, who now overrule us in our 
country." " IJut are not many regiments of Irish and Ger- 
mans now fighting for you ? And will these foreigners who 



a 



TENNESSEE. 325 

have taken up arms in your cause be content to receive as 
tlie result of their success an interior position, politically, to 
that which they now hold ? " " Well, sir, they must ; we 
are bound to go through with this thing if we would save 
society." I had so often heard a similar determination ex- 
pressed by men belonging to the thinking classes in the 
South, that I am bound to believe the project is entertained 
by many of those engaged in this great revolt — one princi- 
ple of which indeed, may be considered hostility to universal 
suffrage, combining with it, of course, the limitation of the 
immigrant vote. 

The portion of Tennessee through which the rail runs is 
exceedingly uninteresting, and looks unhealthy, the clear- 
ings occur at long intervals in the forest, and the unwhole- 
some population, wiio came out of their low shanties, situated 
amidst blackened stumps of trees or fields of Indian corn, 
did not seem pros[)erous or comfortable. The twists and 
curves of the rail, through cane brakes and swamps exceed- 
ed in that respect any line 1 have ever travelled on ; but the 
vertical irregularities of the rail were still greater, and the 
engine bounded as if it were at sea. 

The names of the stations show that a savant has been 
rambling about the district. Here is Corinth, which consists 
of a wooden giog-shop and three log shanties ; the acroj)olis 
is represented by a grocery store, of which tlie proprietors, 
no doubt, have gone to the wars, as their names were sus- 
piciously Milesian, and the doors and windows were fastened; 
but occasionally the names of the stations on the railway 
boards represented towns and villages, hidden in the wood 
some distance away, and Mummius might have something 
to ruin if he marched off the track, but not otherwise. 

The city of Troy was still simpler in arcliitecture than the 
Grecian capitol. The Dardanian towers were represented 
by a timber-house, in the veranda of which the American 
Helen was seated, in the shape of an old woman smoking 
a pipe, and she certainly could have set the Palace of Priam 
on fire much more readily than her prototype. Four sheds, 
three log huts, a saw-mill, about twenty negroes sitting ou 
a wood-pile, and looking at the train, constituted the rest of 
the place, wliich was certainly too new for one to say, Troja 
fait, whilst the general " fixins " would scarcely authorize us 
^ to say with any confidence, Troja fuerit. 

The train from Troy passed through a cypress swamp, over 



32G MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

which the engine rattled, and hopped at a perilous rate along 
high trestle work, till forty-six miles from Humbolt we came 
to Union City, which was apparently formed by aggregate 
meetings of discontented sliavings that had travelled out of the 
forest hard by. But a little beyond it was the Confederate 
camp, which so many citizens and citizenesses had come out 
into the wilderness to see ; and a general descent was made 
upon the place whilst the volunteers came swarming out of 
their tents to meet their friends. It was interesting to observe 
the affectionate greetings between tlie young soldiers, mothers, 
wives, and sweethearts, and as a display of the force and ear- 
nestness of the Southern people — the camp itself containing 
thousands of men, many of whom were members of the first 
families in the State — was specially significant. 

There is no appearance of military order or discipline 
about the camps, though tiiey were guarded by sentries and 
cannon, and implements of war and soldiers' accoutrements 
were abundant. Some of the sentinels carried their firelocks 
under their arms like umbrellas, otiiers carried the but over 
the shoulder and the muzzle downwards, and one for his 
greater ease had stuck the bayonet of his firelock into the 
ground, and was leaning his elbow on the stock with his chin 
on his hand, whilst sybarites less ingenious, had simply depos- 
ited their muskets against the trees, and were lying down 
I'eading newspapers. Their arms and uniforms were of differ- 
ent descriptions — sporting rifies, fowling pieces, fiint muskets, 
smooth bores, long and short barrels, new P^nfields, and the like ; 
but the men, nevertheless, were undoubtedly material for excel- 
lent soldiers. There were some few boys, too young to carry 
arms, although the zeal and ardor of such lads cannot but 
have a good effect, if they behave well in action. 

The great attraction of this train lay in a vast supply of 
stores, witli which several . large vans were closely packed, 
and for fully two hours tlie train was delayed, whilst hampers 
of wine, spirits, vegetables, fruit, meat, groceries, and all the 
various articles acceptable to soldiers living under canvas 
were disgoi'ged on the platform, and carried away by the ex- 
pectant military. 

1 was pleased to observe the perfect confidence that was 
felt in the honesty of the men. The railway servants simply 
deposited each article as it came out on the platform — the 
men came up, read the address, and carried it away, or left it, 
as the case might be ; and only in one instance did I see a 



A FILIBUSTERO. 327 

scramble, which was certainly quite justifiable, for, in handing 
out a large basket the bottom gave way, and out tumbled 
onions, apples, and potatoes among tlie soldiery, who .stutl'ed 
their pockets and haversacks with the unexpected bouiUy. 
One young fellow, who was handed a large wicker-covered 
jar from the van, having shaken it, and gratified his ear by 
the pleasant jingle inside, retired to the roadside, drew the 
cork, and, raising it slowly to his moutli, proceeded to take a 
good pull at the contents, to the envy of his comrades; but 
the pleasant expression upon his face lapidly vanislied, and 
spurting out the fluid with a hideous grimace, he exclaimed, 

" D ; why, if the old woman has not gone and sent me a 

gallon of syrup." The matter* was evidenlly considered too 
serious to joke about, for not a soul in the crowd even smiled ; 
but they walked away from the man, who, putting down 
the jar, seemed in doubt as to whether he would take it away 
or not. 

Numerous were the invitations to stop, which I received 
from the ofiicers. "Why not stay witli us, sir; what can a 
gentleman want to go among black Ilepublicans and Yankees 
for?" It is quite obvious that my return to the Northern 
States is regarded with some suspicion ; Init I am bound to 
say that my explanation of the necessity of the step was 
always well received, and satisfied my Soutiu-rn friends that I 
had no alternative. A special correspondent, whose letters 
caimot get out of the country in which he is engaged, can 
scarcely fulfil the purpose of his mission ; and I used to point 
out, good-humoredly, to tliese gentlemen that until they had 
either opened the communication with the North, or had 
broken the blockade, and established steam communication 
with Elurope, I must seek my base of operations elsewhere. 

At last we started from Union City ; and there came into the 
car, among other soldiers who were going out to Columbus, a fine 
specimen of the wild filibustering population of the South, which 
furnish many recruits to tlie i-auks of tlie Confederate army 
— a tall, brawny-shouldered, brown-faced, black-bearded, hairy- 
handed man, witii a hunter's eye, and rather a Jewish face, 
full of life, energy, and daring. 1 easily got into conversation 
with him, as my companion happened to be a freemason, and 
he told us he had been a i)lanter in ]Mississip[)i, and once 
owned 110 n(>groes, worth at least some 2(),()0()/. ; but, as he said 
himself, " I was always patrioting it about ; " and so he went 
off, first with Lopez to Cuba, was wounded and taken prisontr 



.'528 MY 1)1Ai:y north and sorxii. 

by the Spuiiiiinls, but had the good fortune to be saved from the 
execution whieli was inflicted on the ringleaders of the expe- 
dition. When he came back he Ibund his plantation all the 
worse, and a decrease amongst his negroes ; but his love of 
ailventure and iilibustering was stronger than his pru<lence 
or desire of gain. He took up with Walker, the "gray-eyed 
man of destiny," and accompanied him in his strange career 
till his leader received the cunp de grace in the final raid upon 
Nicaragua. 

Again he was taken ])risoner, and would have been put to 
death by tlu; Nicaraguans, but lor the intervention of" Captain 
Aldham. " 1 don't bear any love to the Britishers," said he, 
"but I'm bound to say, as so many charges have been made 
against Captain Aldliam, that he behaved like a gentleman, 
and if 1 had been at New Orleans when them cussed cowardly 
blackguards ill-used him, I'd have left my mark so deep on a 
few of them, that their clothes would not cover them long." 
lie told us that at present he had only live negroes left, " but 
I'm not going to let the black Republicans lay hold of them, 
and I'n) just going to stand up for Stales' rights as long as I 
can draw a trigger — so snakes and abolitionists look out." 
He was so reduced by starvation, ill-treatment, and sickness 
in Nicaragua, when Captain Aldiiam procured his release, 
that he weighed only 1 10 pt)unds, but at present he was over 
200 pounds, a splendid bftc f'diire, and without wishing so fine 
a looking fellow any harm, I could not but help thinking that 
it nuist be a benefit to American soi-icty to get rid ofa consid- 
erable lunnber of these class of which he is a representative 
man. And there is every probability that they will have a 
full opportunity of doing so. 

On the arrival of the train at Columbus, twenty-five miles 
from Union C^ity, ujy friend got out, and a good number of 
men in uniform joined him, which led me to conclude that 
they had some more serious object than a mere pleasure trip 
to the very uninteresting looking city on the banks of the Mis- 
sissip])i, which is asserted to be neutral territory, as it be- 
longs to the sovereign State of Kentucky. I heard, accident- 
ally, as 1 came in the train, that a i)arty of Fedeial soldiers 
frt)m the camp at Cairo, up the river, had recently desci'uiled 
to Columbus and torn down a secession flag which had been 
hoisted on the river's bank, to the great indignation of many 
of its iidiabitants. 

In those border States the coming war promises to produce 



COLUMBUS, KENTUCKY. S29 

the ojreatest misery ; tliey will he the seenes of hosiilc operations ; 
the population is divided in sentiment ; the greatest efforts 
will he made l)y eaeh side; to gain the aseendeney in tlu' State, 
and to crash the oppo>ite f'aetion, and it is not possihlc lo hc- 
lievo that Kentiieky can maintain u iiontral position, or that 
either Federal or Confederates will pay the smallest regard 
to the proclamation of Governor IMagoHin, and to his empty 
menaces. 

At Cohimhns the steamer was waiting to convey us up to 
Cairo, and I congratulated myself on i\w good fortune of ar- 
riving in time for the last opportunity that will he aifordcd of 
proceeding northward hy t'lis route. General Pillow on the 
one iiand, and General Prentiss on the other, have resolved 
to blockade; the Mississippi, and as the facilities for C'onfed- 
erates going up to Columhus and ohtaining information of 
what is happening in the Federal cani[)s cannot readily he 
checked, the general in connnand of the ])ort to which 1 am 
bound has intimated that the steamers must cease running. 
It was hvte in the day when we entered once more on the 
father of waters, which is here just as broad, as muddy, as 
deep, and as wooded as it is at Baton Rouge, or Vickslmr'j,-. 

Columbus is situated on an elevated spur or elbow of land 
projecting into the river, and has, in commercial fiiith, one of 
those futures which have so many rallying points down the 
centre of the great river. The steamer which lay at the 
wharf, or rather the wooden piles in the bank which afFordcnl 
a resting place for the gangway, carried no flag, and on board 
presented traces of better days, a list of nifreshmcnls no longer 
attainable, and of bill of fare utterly fanciful. Al)out twenty 
passengers came on board, most of whom had a distracted air, 
as if they were doubtful of their journey. The captain was 
surly, the oflice keeper petulant, the crew morose, and, pei"- 
haps, only one man on board, a stout Englishman, who was 
purser or chief of the victualling department, seemed at all in- 
clined to be communicative. At dinner he asked me whether I 
tliought thei-e would be a light, but as 1 was oscillating be- 
tween one extreme and the otiier, I considered it right to con- 
ceal my opinion even from the steward of the JMississippi 
boat ; and, as it happened, the expression of it would not have 
been of much conseipience one way or the other, for it turned 
out that our friend w^.s of very stern stuff. "This war," he 
said, " is all about niggers ; I've been sixteen years in the 
country, and I never met one of them yet was lit to be any 



330 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

tiling but a slave ; I know the two sections well, and 1 tell 
you, sir, the North can't whip the South, let them do their 
best ; they may ruin the country, but they'll do no good." 

There were men on board who had expressed the strongest 
Secession sentiments in the train, but who now sat and listened 
and acquiesced in the opinions of Northern men, and by the 
time Cairo was in sight, they, no doubt, would have taken 
the oath of allegiance which every doubtful person is requii'ed 
to utter before he is allowed to go beyond the military post. 

In about two hours or so the captain pointed out to me a 
tall building and some sheds, which seemed to arise out of a 
wide reach in the river, " that's Cairey," said he, " where the 
Unionists have their camp," and very soon stars and stripes 
were visible, waving from a lofty staff, at the angle of low 
land formed by the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio. 

For two months I had seen only the rival stars and bars, 
with the exception of the rival banner floating from tlie ships 
and the fort at Pickens. One of the passengers told me 
that the place was supposed to be described by Mr. Dickens, 
in " Martin Chuzzlewit," and as the steamer approached the 
desolate embankment, which seemed the only barrier between 
the low land on which the so-called city was built, and the 
waters of the great river rising above it, it certainly became 
impossible to believe that sane men, even as speculators, 
could have fixed upon such a spot as the possible site of a 
great city, — an emporium of trade and commerce. A more 
desolate woe-begone looking place, now that all trade and 
commerce had ceased, cannot be conceived ; but as the south- 
ern terminus of the Central Illinois Railway, it displayed a vei-y 
different scene before the war broke out. 

With the exception of the large hotel, which rises far 
above the levee of the river, the public edifices are repre- 
sented by a church and s|)ire, and the rest of the town by a 
line of shanties and small houses, the rooms and upper stories 
of which are just visible above the embankment. The gen- 
eral impression effected by the place was decidedly like that 
which the Isle of Dogs produces on a despondent foreigner as 
he approaches London by the river on a drizzly day in Novenl- 
ber. The stream, formed by the united efforts of the Missis- 
sij)pi and the Ohio, did not appear to gain much breadth, and 
each of the confluents looked as large as its product with the 
other. Three steamers lay alongside the wooden wharves 
projecting from the embankment, which was also lined by 



CAIRO MOSQUITOES. 331 

some flat-boats. Sentries paraded the gangways as the 
steamer made fast along the shore, but no inquiry was di- 
rected to any of tiie passengers, and I walked up the levee 
and proceeded straight to the hotel, which ))ut nw very much 
in mind of an effort made by speculating proprietors to create 
a watering-place on some lifeless beach. In the hall there 
were a number of officers in United States uniforms, and the 
lower part of the hotel was, apparently, occupied as a mili- 
tary bureau ; finally, I was shoved inlo a small dungeon, with 
a window opening out on the angle formed by the two rivers, 
which was lined with sheds and huts and terminated by a 
battery. 

These camps are such novelties in the country, and there 
is such romance in the mere fact of a man living in a tent, 
that people come far and wide to see their friends under 
such extraordinaiy circumstances, and the hotel at Cairo was 
crowded by men and women who had come from all parts 
of Illinois to visit their acquaintances and relations belong- 
ing to the State troops encamped at this important j)oint. The 
salle a manger, a long and lofty room on the ground floor, 
which I visited at supper time, was almost untenable by rea- 
son of heat and flies ; nor did I And that the free negroes, 
who acted as attendants, possessed any advantages over their 
enslaved brethren a few miles lower down the river ; though 
their freedom was obvious enough in their demeanor and 
manners. 

I was introduced to General Prentiss, an agreeable per- 
son, without any thing about him to indicate the soldier. He 
gave me a number of newspapers, the articles in which were 
princi[)ally occupied with a discussion of Lord .John Russell's 
speech on American att'airs : Much as the South found fault 
with the liritish minister for the views he had expressed, the 
North appears much more indignant, and denouiic(!s in tlie 
press what the journalists are pleased to call "the hostility of 
the Foreign Minister to the United States." It is admitted, 
however, that the extreme iri'itation caused by admitting tiie 
Southern States to exercise limited belligerent i-iglits was not 
quite justifiable. Soon after nightfall I retired to my room 
and battled with mosquitoes till I sank into sleep and exhaus- 
tion, and abandoned myself to their mercies ; perhaps, after 
all, there were not more than a liundred or so, and their unite<l 
efforts could not absorb as much blood as would be taken out 
by one leech, but then their horrible acrimony, which leaves 



332 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

a wreck behind in the phxce where they have banqueted, in- 
spires the utmost indignation and appears to be an indefensible 
prolongation of the outrage of the original bite. 

June 20th. — When I awoke this morning and, gazing out 
of my little window on the regiments parading on the level 
below me, after an arduous struggle to obtain cold water for a 
bath, sat down to consider what I had seen within the last 
two months, and to arrive at some general results from the 
retrospect, I own that after much thought my mind was 
rcfluced to a hazy analysis of the abstract principles of right 
and wrong, in which it failed to come to any very definite con- 
clusion : the space of a very few miles has completely altered 
the phases of thought and the forms of language. 

I am living among " abolitionists, cut-throats, Lincolnite 
mercenaries, foreign invaders, assassins, and plundering Dutch- 
men." Such, at least, the men of Columbus tell me the gar- 
rison at Cairo consists of. Down below me are " rebels, con- 
spirators, robbers, slave breeders, wretches bent upon destroy- 
ing the most perfect government on the face of the earth, in 
order to perpetuate an accursed system, by which, however, 
beings are held in bondage and immortal souls consigned to 
perdition." 

On the whole, the impression left upon my mind by what 
I had seen in slave states is unfavorable to the institution of 
slavery, both as regards its effect on the slave and its influ- 
ence on the master. But my examination was necessarily 
superficial and hasty. I have reason to believe that the more 
deeply the institution is probed, the more clearly will its un- 
soundness and its radical evils be discerned. The constant 
appeals made to the physical comforts of the slaves, and their 
supposed contentment, have little or no effect on any person 
who acts up to a higher standard of human hapi)iness than 
that which is applied to swine or the beasts of the fields " See 
how fat my pigs are." 

The arguments founded on a comparison of the condition 
of the slave population with the pauperized inhabitants of 
European states are utterly fallacious, inasmuch as in one 
point, which is the most important by far, there can be no com- 
parison at all. In effect slaveiy can only be justified in the 
abstract on the giounds which slavery advocates decline to 
take boldly, though they insinuate it now and then, that is, 
the infei-iority of the negro in respect to white men, which 
removes them from the upper class of human beings and 



THE WRATH TO COME. 333 

places thorn in a condition which is as much below the Cau- 
casian standard as tlie qnachuiuanous creatures are beneath the 
negro. Shivery is a curse, with its time of accomphshment 
not quite at liand — it is a cancer, the ravages oi" whicli are 
covered by i'air outward show, and by the apparent health of 
the sufferer. 

The Slave States, of course, would not support the Nouthern 
for a year, if cotton, sugar, and tobacco became suddenly 
worthless. But, nevertheless, the slave-owners would have 
strong grounds to stand upon if they were content to point to 
the diiliculties in the way of emancipation, and the circum- 
stances under which they received their damnosa kereditas 
from P^ngland, which fostered, nay forced, slavery in legisla- 
tive hotbeds throughout the colonies. The Englishman may 
say, " We abolished slavery when we saw its evils." The 
slave-owner replies, " Yes, with you it was possible to decree 
the extinction — not with us." 

Never did a people enter on a war so utterly destitute of 
any reason for waging it, or of the means of bringing it to a 
successful termination against internal enemies. The thirteen 
colonies had a large population of sea-faring and soldiering 
men, constantly engaged in military ex[)editions. There was 
a large infusion, compared with the numbers of men capable 
of commanding in the held, and their great enemy was sep- 
arated by a space far greater than the whole circinnference of 
the globe would be in the present time from the scene of 
operations. Most American officers who took part in the war 
of 1812-14 are now too old for service, or retired into private 
life soon after the campaign. The same remai'k applies to 
the senior officers who served in Mexico, and the experiences 
of that campaign could not be of much use to those now in 
the service, of whom the majority were subalterns, or at most, 
officers in command of volunteers. 

A love of military display is very different indeed from a 
true soldierly sjjirit, and at the base of the volunteer system 
there lies a radical difficulty, which must be overcome before 
real military efficiency can be expected. In the South the 
foreign element has contributed largely to swell the ranks with 
many docile and a few experienced soldiers, the number of 
the latter predominating in the German levies, and the same 
remark is, 1 hear, true of the Northern armies. 

The most active member of the staff here is a young 
Englishman named Binmore, who was a stenographic writer 



•,VM 



MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 



in LoikIoii, but Ikvs now sliiirpcncd liis pencil into a sword, 
and wlicn I went into flic tjuard-rooin this nioi-nin;; I found 
tiiat tiuvc fonrllis oi" (lie oIliciM-s, inchidinijj all who had seen 
aclnal service, were I'oreij^ners. One, JMilot/.ky, was an Hini- 
pjarian ; another, Waaprner, was of (he same nationality: a 
third, Schnttner, was a (!ern\an ; anolhcr, IMac soint'lhin};, was 
a Scolclnnan; another was an Kni!;lishnian. Ont^ t>'dy (Colo- 
nel IMorfi;an), who had served in JMexico, was an American. 
The f"orei<^ncrs, of course, servo in (his war as mercenaries ; 
that is, they enter into the conflict to jijain something by it, 
either in pay, in |)osition, or in secnrinj:; a status for (hems(!ivcs. 

The utter abs«>nce of any (ixed principle determining the 
side which the foreign natitinalities adopt is proved by their 
going North or South wi(h (he state in which they live. On 
the otlx'r hand, the effects of discipline and of the principles 
of military life oi» rank and file are shown by the fact that 
the soldiers of the regular regiments of the United States and 
the sailors in the navy have to a man adhered to their colors, 
notwithstanding the examples and inducements of their 
ollicers. 

After breakfast I went down about the works, which fortify 
the bank of mud, in the shape of a V, formed by (li(» two 
rivers — a (leche with a ditch, sear|), and counter-scarp. 
Some heavy pieces cover the end of the spit at the other side 
of the IMississippi, at Hird's Point. On the side of Missouri 
there is a field intrenehment, held by a reginuMit of (Ternians, 
Poles, and llinigarians, about 1000 strong, with two field bat- 
teries. The sacred soil of Kentucky, on the other side of the 
Ohio, is tabooed by Heriah INIagolfm, but it is not jiossible for 
the belligerents to stand so close fiu'c to face without occupy- 
ing either Columbus or Hickman. The thermometer was at 
lOO"^" vsoon after breakfast, and it was not wonderful to find 
that (he men in Can\p !)e(ianc(>, which is the name of the can- 
tonment on (he nnid between the levees of the Oliio and Mis- 
sissippi, were suffering from diarrluca and fever. 

In (he evening (here was a review of three regimtMits, form- 
ing a brigade of some 2800 men, who went thnMigh their drill, 
ailvancing in coliunns of com|)auy, moving en vcliclon, changing 
front, deploying into line on the centre company, very credi- 
tably. It was curious to see what a start ran through the 
men iluring (he parade when a gun was fired from the battery 
close at hand, and how (heir ln'ads (uriu'd f»)ward (he river; 
but the steamer which had appeared round the bend hoisted 



ELEGANT EXTRACTS. 035 

the private signs, by wliich she was known as a frii-nd, iuul 
tranciiiillity was rostoivd. 

1 am not sure that most of those troops desire anytliinjf but 
a lonj;^ residence at a fok'rably comfbrtahU' station, with pU'iity 
of" pay and no niarehinjr, Cairo, indeed, is not eomfbrtabh' ; 
the worst barrack that ever asphyxiated the Hritish soldier 
would be better than the best shed here, and the fl'es and the 
mosquitoes are beyond all conception virulent and pestiferous, 
I would not give much to see Cairo in its normal state, but it 
is my fate to witness the most interesting scenes in the world 
through a glaze of gunpowder. It would be nnfaii" to say that, 
any marked superiority in dwelling, clothing, or comfort was 
visible between the mean white of Cairo or the black chattel 
n few miles down the river. Brawling, rioting, and a good 
deal of drinikenness prevailed in the miserable sheds which 
line the stream, although there was nothing to justify the 
libels on the garrison of the Cobnnh/ts Crescent, edited by one 
Colonel L. G. Faxon, of the Tennessee Tigers, with whose 
writings I was made accpiaiuted by (ieueral I'renliss, to whom 
they appeared to give more annoyance than he was (piite wise 
in showing. 

This is a style of journalism which may have its merits, 
and which certainly is j^eculiar; I give a few small pieces. 
''The Irish are for us, and they will knock Bologna sausages 
out of the Dutch, and we will knock wooden nutmegs out of 
the Yankees." " The mosquitoes of Cairo have been sucking 
the lager-bier out of the dirty soldiers there so long, they are 
bloated and swelled up as large as spring '[)ossums. An as- 
sortment of Columbus mosquitoes went up there the other day 
to suck some, but as they have not returned, the probability 
is they went oti" with delirium tremens; in fact, the blood of 
these Hessians would poison the most degraded tuuible bug in 
creation." 

Our editor is particularly angry about the recent seizure of 
a Confederate flag at Columbus by Colonel Oglesby and a 
party of Federals from Cairo. Speaking of a Hag intended 
for himself, he says, " Would that its folds had contained 
1000 asps to sting 1000 Dutchmen to eternity unshriven." 
Our friend is certainly a genius. His paper of June the 19th 
opens Avith an apology for the non-appearance of the journal 
for several weeks. " Belbre leaving," he says, " we engaged 
the services of a competent editor, and left a printer here to 
issue the paper regularly. We were det<ained several weeks 



336 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

beyond our time, the aforesaid printer promised faithfully to 
perform his duties, but he left the same day we did, and con- 
sequently there was no one to get out the pa{)er. We have 
the charity to suppose that fear and bad whiskey iiad nothing 
to do with his evacuation of Columbus." Another elegant 
extract about the tiag commences, "• When the bow-legged 
■wooden-shoed, sour craut stinking, Bologna sausage eating, 

hen roost robbing Dutch sons of had accomplished the 

brilliant feat of taking down the Secession flag on the river 
bank, they wei'e pointed to another flag of the same sort 
which their guns did not cover, flying gloriously and defiantly, 
and dared yea ! double big black dog — dared, as we used to 
say at school, to take that flag down — the cowardly pups, the 
thieving sheep dogs, tlie sneaking skunks dare not do so, 
because their twelve pieces of artillery were not bearing on 
it." As to the Federal commander at Caii'o, Colonel Faxon's 
sentiments are unambiguous. " The qualifications of this 
man, Prentiss," he says, " for the command of such a squad of 
villains and cut-throats are, that he is a miserable hound, a 
dirty dog, a sociaI)le fellow, a treacherous villain, a notorious 
thief, a lying blackguard, who has served his regular five 
years in the Penitentiary and keeps his hide continually full 
of Cincinnati whiskey, which he buys by the barrel in order 
to save his money — in him are embodied the leprous rascali- 
ties of the world, and in this living score, the gallows is 
cheated of its own. Prentiss wants our scalp ; we propose a 
plan by which he may get that valuable article. Let him 
select 150 of his best fighting men, or 250 of his lager-bier 
Dutchmen, we will select 100, then let both parties meet 
where there will be no interrujjtion at the scalping business, 
and the longest pole will knock the persimmon. Jf he does 
not acce[)t this pro()osal, he is a coward. We think this a 
gentlemanly proposition and quite fair and equal to both 
parties." 



CHAPTER XL. 

Camp at Cairo — The North and the South in respect to Europe 

— Political reflections — Mr. Colonel Oglesby — My speech — 
Northern and Southern soldiers compared — American country- 
walks — Recklessness of life — Want of cavalry — Emeute in the 
camp — Defects of army medical department — Horrors of war 

— Bad discipline. 

June 2\st. — Verily I would be sooner in the Coptic Cairo, 
narrow streeted, dark bazaared, many Hied, much vexed by 
donkeys and by overland route passengers, than the horrid 
tongue of land which licks the muddy margin of the Ohio 
and the Mississippi. The thermometer at 100° in the shade, 
before noon indicates nowhere else such an amount of heat 
and suffering, and yet prostrate as I was, it was my fate to 
argue that England was justified in conceding belligerent 
rights to the South, and that the attitude of neutrality we had 
assumed in this terrible quarrel is not in effect an aggression 
on the United States ; and here is a difference to be perceived 
between the North and the South. 

The people of the seceding States, aware in their con- 
sciences that they have been most active in their hostility to 
Great Britain, and whilst they were in power were mainly 
responsible for the defiant, irritating, and insulting tone com- 
monly used to us by American statesmen, are anxious at the 
present moment when so much depends on the action of for- 
eign countries, to remove all unfavorable impressions from 
our minds by declarations of good will, respect, and admira- 
tion, not quite compatible with the language of their leaders 
in times not long gone by. The North, as yet unconscious of 
the loss of power, and reared in a school of menace and vio- 
lent assertion of their riglits, regarding themselves as the whole 
of the United States, and animated by their own feeling of 
commercial and political opposition to Great Britain, main- 
tain the high tone of a people who have never known let or 
hindrance in their passions, and consider it an outrage that 
15 



338 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the whole world does not join in active sympathy for a gov- 
ernment which in its brief career has contrived to affront 
every nation in Europe with which it had any dealings. 

If the United States have astonished Fiance by their in- 
gratitude, they have certainly accustomed England to their 
petulance, and one can fancy the satisfaction with which the 
Austrian Statesmen who remember Mr. Webster's despatch 
to Mr. Hulsemann, contemplate the present condition of the 
United States in the face of an insurrection of these sover- 
eign and independent States which the Cabinet at Washing- 
ton stigmatizes as an outbreak of rebels and traitors to the 
royalty of the Union. 

During my short sojourn in this country I have never yet 
met any person who could show me where the sovereignty of 
the Union resides. General Prentiss, however, and his Illi- 
nois volunteers, are quite ready to fight for it. 

In the afternoon the General drove me round the camps in 
company with Mr. Washburne, Member of Congress, from 
Illinois, his staff and a party of officers, among whom was Mr. 
Oglesby, colonel of a regiment of State Volunteers, who struck 
me by his shrewdness, simple honesty, and zeal.* He told 
me that he had begun life in the utmost obscurity, but that 
somehow or other he got into a lawyer's office, and there, by 
hard drudgery, by mother wit, and industry, notwithstanding 
a defective education, he had raised himself not only to inde- 
pendence, but to such a position that 1000 men had gathered 
at his call and selected one who had never led a company in 
his life to be their colonel ; in fact, he is an excellent orator 
of the western school, and made good homely, telling speeches 
to his men. 

" I'm not as good as your Frenchmen of the schools of 
Paris, nor am I equal to the Russian colonels I met at St. 
Petersburg, who sketched me out how they had beaten you 
Britishers at Sebastopol," said he ; " but I know I can do 
good straight fighting with my boys when I get a chance. 
There is a good deal in training, to be sure, but nature tells 
too. Why I believe I would make a good artillery officer if 
I was put to it. General, you heard how I laid one of thera 
guns the other day and touched her off with my own hand 
and sent the ball right into a tree half-a-mile away." The 
Colonel evidently thought he had by that feat proved his fit- 
ness for the command of a field battery. One of the German 
* Since died of wounds received in action. 



CAMP ORATORY. 339 

officers who was listening to the lively old man's talk, whis- 
pered to me, " Dere is a good many of tese colonels in dis 
camp." 

At each station the officers came out of their tents, shook 
hands all round, and gave an unfailing invitation to get down 
and take a drink, and the guns on the General's approach 
fired salutes, as though it was a time of profoundest peace. 
Powder was certainly more plentiful than in the Confederate 
camps, where salutes are not permitted unless by special order 
on great occasions. 

The General remained for some time in the camp of the 
Chicago light artillery, which was commanded by a fine young 
Scotchman of the Saxon genus Smith, who told me that the 
privates of his company represented a million and a half of 
dollars in propiM'ty. Their guns, horses, carriages, and ac- 
coutrements were all in the most creditable order, and there 
was an air about the men and about their camp which showed 
they did not belong to the same class as the better disciplined 
Hungarians of Milotzky close at hand. 

Whilst we were seated in Captain Smith's tent, a number 
of the privates came; forward, and sang the " Star-spangled 
banner," and a patriotic song, to the air of " God save the 
Queen ! " and the rest of the artillery-men, and a number of 
stragglers from the other camps, assembled and then formed 
line behind the singers. When the chorus was over there 
arose a great shout for Washburne, and the honorable con- 
gressman was fain to come forward and make a speech, in 
which he assured his hearers of a very speedy victory and the 
advent of liberty all over the land. Then " General Prentiss" 
was called for; and as citizen soldi(Ts command their Generals 
on such occasions, he too was obliged to sp(>ak, and to tell hi3 
audience " the world had never seen any men more devoted, 
gallant, or patriotic than themselves." " Oglesby " was next 
summoned, and the tall, portly, good-humored old man stepped 
to the front, and with excellent tact and good sense, dished up 
in the Buncombe style, told them the time for making s])eeches 
had passed, indeed it had lasted too long ; and although it was 
paid there was very little fighting when there was much talk- 
ing, he believed too much talking was likely to lead to a great 
deal more fighting than any one desired to see between citi- 
zens of the United States of America, except their enemies, 
who, no doubt, were much better pleased to see Americans 
fighting each other than to find thera engaged in any other 



340 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

employment. Great as the mischief of too much talking had 
been, too much writing had far more of the mischief to an- 
swer for. The pen was keener than the tongue, hit harder, 
and left a more incurable wound ; but the pen was better than 
the tongue, because it was able to cure the mischief it had in- 
flicted." And so by a series of sentences the Colonel got round 
to me, and to my consternation, remembering how I had fared 
with my speech at the little private dinner on St. Patrick's 
Day in New York, I was called upon by stentorian lungs, and 
hustled to the stump by a friendly circle, till I escaped by ut- 
tering a few sentences as to " mighty struggle," " Europe gaz- 
ing," " the world, anxious," "the virtues of discipline," "the 
admirable lessons of a soldier's life," and the " aspiration that 
in a quarrel wherein a British subject was ordered, by an au- 
thority he was bound to respect, to remain neutral, God might 
2)reserve the right." 

Colonel, General, and all addressed the soldiers as "gen- 
tlemen," and their auditory did not on their part refrain from 
expressing their sentiments in the most unmistakable manner. 
" Bully for you. General ! " " Bravo, Washburne ! " " That's 
so, Colonel ! " and the like, interrupted the harangues ; and 
when the oratorical exercises were over the men crowded 
round the staff, cheered and hurrahed, and tossed up their 
caps in the greatest delight. 

With the exception of the foreign officers, and some of the 
Staff, there ai-e very few of the colonels, majors, captains, or 
lieutenants who know anything of their business. The men 
do not care for them, and never think of saluting them. A 
regiment of Germans was sent across from Bird's Point this 
evening for plundering and robbing the houses in the district 
in which they were quartered. 

It may be readily imagined that the scoundrels who had to 
fly from every city in Europe before the face of the police 
will not stay their hands when they find themselves masters 
of the situation in the so-called country of an enemy. In 
such matters the officers have little or no control, and disci- 
pline is exceedingly lax, and punishments but sparingly in- 
flicted, the use of the lash being forbidden altogether. Fine 
as the men are, incomparably better armed, clad — and doubt- 
less better fed — than the Southern troops, they will scarcely 
meet them man to man in the field with any chance of suc- 
cess. Among the officers are bar-room keepers, persons little 
above the position of potmen in England, grocers' apprentices, 



A WALK IN THE COUNTUV. 3 41 

spirt 't~''''^"'^■"T^^^■^"^^ •" every oti.er , . 0- 

u^cnei.il i icntiss has seen service, I believe, in Mexico- hn 

a they go and come, exasperatin;? enemies, con^erM"?^!,?' 
Uals mto opponents, disgusting friends, and eav"n" i, 1„ ,1 ^ 

n.;cond«5,^j::,,;r;;a^e':r;;:i:!'-„r^""- 

co„a"ed in C^™ " TZ" """"""l'',^'"'" «» n>ad if he were 

a™udd;?iv';";:;otl..;;.:re',:'r;c!:ief.rt'="::;ra°s''-%f 

either impassable in mud or knee deep b d^^t T^ '''" 

green shady lanes, no sheltering grove, no qu tt I^ZT" "k 
green meadows beneath umbrifoun^e^r^SP /e J^i 'tS 
s a morass -or, at best, a clearing _ full 0^3'™ Nn 
temptations to take a «fiv>ll r» . slumps, j\o 

ride or drive -indeed "n. 7 '^^^ '^""'^^ '^'^ P'«"ter8 

wayside u'iuld i^-olv.fl "^^^"^ P'^^«^^ ^^^ saunterer by the 

socfety of ra!fj;fkes ' '""""^^ ^" ^'^'°"^^^'' ^ ^^'-^ ^ 

waited 01^ by Mr OT ' "'"t""« '''°"> '^"'"P <"i«''l'"». '"'•' 

|;anno„ Brigade in I„di.a,rw"r,tu;tt'tru;,i;d 

fc»tate,'^ army, where I should ^.v h^ f„. i i- u- Linitcu 

"ut or i,Iace Thp R. ^^ f , '"'"-^^'f very much 



342 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

tary friends around them, and the great merits of "heavy artil- 
lery. " When I tell them here the way poor Sir William 
made us rattle about them sixty-eight-pounder guns, the poor 
ignorant creatures laugh at me — not one of them believes it," 
" It is most astonishing," says the colonel, " how ignorant they 
are ; there is not one of these men who can trace a regular 
work. Of West Point men I speak not, but of the people about 
here, and they will not learn of me — from me who know." 
However, the works were well enough, strongly covered, com- 
manded both rivers, and not to be reduced without trouble. 

The heat drove me in among the flies of the crowded hotel, 
where Brigadier Prentiss is planning one of those absurd ex- 
peditions against a Secessionist camp at Commerce, in the 
State of Missouri, about two hours steaming up the river, and 
some twelve or fourteen miles inland. Cairo abounds in Se- 
cessionists and spies, and it is needful to take great precautions 
lest the expedition be known ; but, after all, stores must be got 
ready, and put on board the steamers, and preparations must 
be made which cannot be concealed from the world. At dusk 
700 men, supported by a six-pounder field-piece, were put on 
board the " City of Alton," on which they clustered like bees 
in a swarm, and as the huge engine labored up and down 
against the stream, and the boat swayed from side to side, I 
felt a considerable desire to see General Prentiss chucked into 
the stream for his utter recklessness in cramming on board one 
huge tinder-box, all fire and touchwood, so many human beings, 
who, in event of an explosion, or a shot in the boiler, or of a 
heavy musketry fire on the banks, would have been converted 
into a great slaughter-house. One small boat hung from her 
stern, and although there were plenty of river flats and numer- 
ous steamers, even the horses belonging to the field-piece 
were crammed in among the men along the deck. 

In my letter to Europe I made, at the time, some remarks 
by which the belligerents might have profited, and which at 
the time these pages are reproduced may strike them as pos- 
sessing some value, illustrated as they have been by many 
events in the war. " A handful of horsemen would have been 
admirable to move in advance, feel the covers, and make pris- 
oners for political or other purposes in case of flight ; but the 
Americans persist in ignoring the use of horsemen, or at least 
in depreciating it, though they will at last find that they may 
shed much blood, and lose much more, before they can gain a 
victory without the aid of artillery and charges after the retreat- 



A CAMP fiMEUTE. 843 

ing enemy. From the want of cavalry, T suppose it is, the 
unmilitary practice of ' scouting,' as it is called here, has arisen. 
It is all very well in the days of Indian wars for footmen to 
creep about in the bushes, and shoot or be shot by sentries and 
pickets ; but no civilized war recognizes such means of aimoy- 
ance as firing upon sentinels, unless in case of an actual ad- 
vance or feigned attack on the line. No camp can be safe 
without cavalry videttes and pickets ; for the enemy can pour 
in impetuously after the alarm has been given, as fast as the 
outlying footmen can run in. In feeling the way for a column, 
cavalry are invaluable, and there can be little chance of am- 
buscades or surprises where they are judiciously employed ; 
but ' scouting ' on foot, or adventurous private expeditions on 
horseback, to have a look at the enemy, can do, and will do, 
nothing but harm. Every day the papers contain accounts of 
' scouts ' being killed, and sentries being picked off. The latter 
is a very barbarous and savage practice ; and the Russian, in 
his most angry moments, abstained from it. If any officer 
wishes to obtain information as to his enemy, he has two ways 
of doing it. He can employ spies, who carry their lives in 
their hands, or he can beat up their quarters by a proper re- 
connoissance on his own responsibility, in which, however, it 
would be advisable not to trust his force to a railway train." 

At night there was a kind of emeute in camp. The day, as 
I have said, was excessively hot, and on returning to their 
tents and huts from evening parade the men found the con- 
tractor who supplies them with water had not filled the barrels; 
so they forced the sentries, broke barracks after hours, mobbed 
their officers, and streamed up to the hotel, which they sur- 
rounded, calling out, " Water, water," in chorus. Tlie Gen- 
eral came out, and got up on a rail : " Gentlemen," said he, 
" it is not my fault you are without water. It's your officers 
who are to blame ; not me." (" Groans for the Quartermas- 
ter," from the men.) " If it is the fault of the contractor, I'll 
see that he is punished. I'll take steps at once to see that the 
matter is remedied. And now, gentlemen, I hope you'll go 
back to your quarters ; " and the gentlemen took it into their 
heads very good-humoredly to obey the suggestion, fell in, and 
marched back two deep to their huts. 

As the General was smoking his cigar before going to bed, 
I asked him why the officers had not more control over the 
men. " Well," said he, " the oHicei-s are to blame for all this. 
The truth is, tiie term for which these volunteers enlisted is 
drawing to a close ; and they have not as yet enrolled them- 



344 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

selves in the United States army. They are merely volun- 
teer regiments of the State of Illinois. If they were dis- 
pleased with anything, therefore, th(;y might refuse to enter tlie 
service or to take fresh engagements ; and the officers would 
find themselves suddenly left without any men ; they therefore 
curry favor with the privates, many of them, too, having an eye 
to the votes of the men when the elections of officers in the new 
regiments are to take place." 

The contractors have commenced plunder on a gigantic 
scale ; and their influence with the authorities of the State is 
so powerful, there is little chance of punishing them. Besides, 
it is not considered expedient to deter contractors, by too scru- 
pulous an exactitude, in coming forward at such a trying 
period ; and the Quartermaster's department, which ought to 
be the most j)erfect, considering the number of persons con- 
nected with transport and carriage, is in a most disgraceful and 
Inefficient condition. I told the General that one of the 
Southern leaders proposed to hang any contractor who was 
found out in cheating the men, and that the press cordially ap- 
proved of the suggestion. " I am afraid," said he, if any such 
proposal was carried out here, there would scarcely be a con- 
tractor left throughout the States." Equal ignorance is shown 
by the medical authorities of the requirements of an army. 
There is not an ambulance or cacolet of any kind attached to 
this camp ; and, as far as I could see, not even a litter was 
sent on board the steamer which has started with the ex- 
pedition. 

Although there has scarcely been a fought field or anything 
more serious than the miserable skirmishes of Shenck and 
Butler, the pressure of war has already told upon the people. 
The Cairo paper makes an urgent api)eal to the authorities to 
relieve the distress and j)auperism which the sudden interrup- 
tion of trade has brought upon so many respectable citizens. 
And when I was at Memphis the other day, I observed a pub- 
lic notice in the journals, that the magistrates of the city would 
issue orders for money to families left in distress by the enrol- 
ment of the male members for military service. When 
General Scott, sorely against his will, was urged to make 
preparations for an armed invasion of the seceded States in 
case it became necessary, he said it would need some hundreds 
of thousands of men and many millions of money to effect that 
object. Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Lincoln laughed 
pleasantly at this exaggeration, but they have begun to find by 
this time the old general was not quite so much in the wrong. 



SENTRY DUTY. 345 

In reference to the discipline maintained in the camp, I must 
admit tiiat proper precautions are used to prevent spies entering 
the lines. The sentries are posted closely, and permit no one 
to go in without a pass in the day and a countersign at night. 
A conversation with General Prentiss in tlie front of the hotel 
was interrupted this ev<'ning hy an Irishman, who ran past us 
towards the camp, hotly pursued hy two [)olicemen. The sen- 
try on duty at the point of the lines close to us hrought him up 
hy the point of the hayonet. " Who goes tere?" " A friend, 
shure your honor ; I'm a friend." " Advance three paces and 
give the countersign." " I don't know it, I tell you. Let me 
in, let me in." But the German was re.solute, and the i)olice- 
men now coming up in hot pursuit, seized the culprit, who 
resisted violently, till General Prentiss rose from his chair and 
ord<ir«;d the guard, who had tiirned out, to make a })risoner of 
the soldier and hand him over to the civil power, for which the 
man seemed to he most deeply grateful. As the policemen 
were walking him off, he exclaimed, " lit; (juiet wid ye, till I 
spake a word to the Giniral," and then howiiig and chuckling 
with drunken gravity, he said, " an' indeed, Giniral, I'm much 
ohleeged to ye altogither for this kindness. Long life to ye. 
We've got tlie hetterof that dirty German. Hoora' for Giniral 
Prentiss." He preferred a chance of more whiskey in the police 
oflice and a light punishment to the work in camp and a heavy 
drill in the morning. An olficer who was challeng«!d by a sen- 
try the other evening, asked him, " Do you know the counter- 
eign yourself? " " No, sir, it's not nine o'clock, and they have 
not given it out yet." Another sentry stopped a man be- 
cause he did not know the countersign. The fellow said, "I 
dare say you don't know it yourself." " Thai's a lie," he ex- 
claimed ; " it's Plattsburgii." " Plattshurgli it is, sure enough," 
said the other, and walked on without further parley. 

The Americans, Irish, and Germans, do not always coin- 
cide in the phonetic value of each letter in the passwords, and 
several difficulties have occurred in consequence. An incau- 
tious approach towards the posts at night is attended with 
risk ; for the raw sentries are very quick on the trigger. 
More fatal and serious injuries have been inflicted on the 
Federals by themselves than by the enemy. " I declare to 
you, sir, the way the boys touched off their irons at me going 
home to my camp last night, was just like a running light 
with the Ingins. I was a little ' tight,' and didn't mind it a 
cuss." 

15* 



CHAPTER XLL 

Impending battle — By railway to Chicago — Northern enlightenment 
— Mound City — "Cotton is King" — Land in the States — 
Dead level of Ajnerican society — Return into the Union — Amer- 
ican homes — Across the Prairie — VVliite laborers — New pil- 
lager — Lake Michigan. 

June 2od. — The latest information which I received to- 
day is of a nature to hasten my departure for Washington ; 
it can no longer be doubted that a battle between the two 
armies assembled in tlie neighborliood of the capital is immi- 
nent. The vague hope which from time to time I have enter- 
tained of being able to visit Richmond before I finally take up 
my (juarters with the only army from which I can communicate 
regularly with P^urope has now vanished. 

At four o'clock in the evening I started by the train on the 
famous Central Illinois line from Cairo to Chicago. 

The carriages were tolerably well filled with soldiers, and 
in addition to them there were a few unfortunate women, 
undergoing deportation to some less moral neighborhood. 
Neither the look, language, nor manners of my fellow-passen- 
gers inspired me with an exalted notion of the intelligence, 
comfort, and resj)ectability of the people which are so much 
vaunted by Mr. Seward and American journals, and which, 
though truly attributed, no doubt, to the people of the New 
England States, cannot be affirmed with equal justice to belong 
to all the other components of the Union. 

As the Southerners say, their negroes are the happiest 
peoj)le on liie earth, so the Nortiierners boast, "We are the 
most enlightened nation in the world." The soldiers in the 
train were intelligent enough to think they ought not to be 
kept without pay, and free enough to say so. The soldiers 
abused Cairo roundly, and indeed it is wonderful if the peo- 
ple can live on any food but quinine. However, speculators, 
looking to its natural advantages as the point where the two 
great rivers join, bespeak tor Cairo a magnificent and prosper- 
ous future. The present is not promising. 



MOUND CITY. — COTTON IS KING. 347 

Leaving the shanties, which face the levees, and some poor 
wooden houses with a short vista of cross streets partially 
flooded at rit^ht angles to them, the rail suddenly plunges into 
an unmistakable swamp, where a forest of dead trees wave 
their ghastly, leafless arms over their buried trunks, like 
plumes over a hearse — a cheerless, miserable place, sacred to 
the ague and fever. This occurs close to the cleared space 
on which tlie city is to stand, — when it is finished — and the 
rail, which runs on tiie top of the embankment or levee, here 
takes to the trestle, and is borne over the water on the usual 
timber frame-work. 

" Mound City," which is the first station, is composed of a 
mere heap of earth, like a ruined brickkiln, which rises to 
some height and is covered with fine white oaks, beneath 
which are a few log huts and hovels, giving tlie place its 
proud name. Tents were pitched on the mound side, from 
which wild-looking bajiditti sort of men, with arms, emerged 
as the train stopped. " I've been pretty well over P^urope," 
said a meditative voice beside me, " and I've seen the despotic 
armies of the old world, but I don't think they equal that set 
of boys." The question was not worth arguing — the boys 
were in fact very " weedy," " splinter-shinned chaps," as an- 
other critic insisted. 

There were some settlers in the woods around Mound City, 
and a jolly-looking, corpulent man, who introduced himself 
as one of the officers of the hind department of the Central 
Illinois railroad, described them as awful warnings to the 
emigrants not to stick in the south part of Illinois. It was 
suggestive to find that a very genuine John liull, " located," 
as they say in the States for many years, had as much aver- 
sion to the principles of the abolitionists as if he had been 
born a Soutliern planter. Another countryman of his and 
mine, steward on board the steamer to Cairo, eagerly asked 
me what I thought of the quarrel, and which side I would 
back. I declined to say more than I thought the North pos- 
sessed very great superiority of means if the conflict were to 
be fought on the same terms. Whereupon my Saxon friend 
exclaimed, " all tlie Northern States and all the power of the 
world can't beat the South ; and why ? — because the South 
has got cotton, and cotton is king." 

The Cential Illinois oHicer did not suggest the propriety of 
purchasing lots, but he did intimate I would be doing service 
if I informed the world at large, they could get excellent land, 



848 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

at sums varyinnj from ten to twenty-five dolLirs an acre. In 
America a man's income is re[)res('ntecl by capitalizing all that 
he is worth, and whereas in England we say a man has so 
much a year, the Americans, in representing his value, ob- 
serve that he is worth so many dollars, by which they mean 
that all he has in the world would realize the amount. 

It sounds very well to an Irish tenant farmer, an English 
cottier, or a cultivator in the Lothians, to hear that he can get 
huid at the rate of from £2 to £5 per acre, to be his forever, 
liable only to state taxes ; but when he comes to see a paral- 
hdogram markc^d upon the map as " good soil, of unfathom- 
able richness," and finds in effect that he must cut down trees, 
eradicate stumps, drain off water, build a house, struggle for 
high-priced labor, and contend with imperfect roads, the want 
of many things to which he has been accustomed in the old 
coinitry, the land may not appear to him such a bargain. In 
the wooded districts he has, indeed a sufficiency of fuel as long 
as trees and stumps last, but they are, of course, great impedi- 
ments to tillage. If he goes to the prairie he finds that fuel 
is scarce and water by no means wholesome. 

When we left this swamp and forest, and came out after a 
run of many miles on the clear laiuls which abut upon the 
l)rairie, largi; fields of corn lay around us, which bore a pecul- 
iarly blighted and harassed look. These fields were sutfering 
from the ravages of an insect called the " army worm," almost 
as destructiv(! to corn and crops as the locust-like hordes of 
North and South, which are vying with each other in laying 
waste the fields of Virginia. Night was falling as the train 
rattled out into the wild, fiat sea of waving grass, dotted by 
patch-like Indian corn enclosures ; but halts at such places as 
Jonesburgh and Cobden, enabled us to see that these settle- 
ni<;nts in Illinois were neither very fiourishing nor very civil- 
ized. 

There is a level modicum of comfort, which may be con- 
sistent with the greatest good of the greatest number, but 
which makes the standard of the highest in [)oint of well-being 
very low indeed. I own, that to me, it would be more agnui- 
able to see a fiourishing community placed on a high level in 
all that relates to the comfort and social status of all its mem- 
bers than to recognize the old types of European civilization, 
which place the castle on the hill, surround its outer walls 
with the mansion of doctor and lawyer, and drive the people 
into obscure hovels outside. 15ut then one must confess that 



WESTERN TOWNS. 349 

there ai'e in the castle some elevating tendencies which cannot 
be found in the unirorni level of citizen equality. There are 
traditions of nobility and noble deeds in the family ; there are 
]):iiutings on the walls ; the library is stored with valuable 
knowledge, and from Its precincts are derived the lessons not 
yet unlearned in Europe, that though man may be equal, the 
condition of men must vary as the accidents of life or the 
effects of individual character, called fortune, may determine. 

The towns of Jonesbiu-gh and Cobden have their little tea- 
pot-looking churches and mec'ting-houses, their lager-bier sa- 
loons, their restaurants, their small libraries, institutes, and 
reading rooms, and no doubt tiiey have also their political 
cliques, social distinctions and favoritisms ; but it requires, 
nevertheless, little sagacity to perceive that the highest of the 
bourgeois who leads the mass at meeting and i)rayer, has but 
little to distinguish him from the very lowest mcunber of tiie 
same body politic. Cobden, for example, has no less than four 
drinking saloons, all on the line of rail, and no doubt the high- 
est citizen in the [)lace fre({uents some one or other of thenl, 
and meets there the worst rowdy in the place. Even though 
they do carry a vote for eacii adult man, " locations " here 
would not appear very oiiviable in the eyes of the most miser- 
able Dorsetshire small farmer ever ferreted out by " S. 
G. O." 

A considerable number of towns, formed by accretions of 
small stores and drinking places, called magazines, round the 
original shed wherein live the station master and his assistants, 
mark the course of the railway. Some are important enough 
to possess a bank, which is generally represented by a wooden 
hut, with a large board nailed in front, bearing the names of 
the president and cashier, and ainiouncing the success and 
liberality of the management. Tlie stores are also decorated 
with large signs, recommending the names of the owners to 
the attention of the public, and over all of them is to be seen 
the significant announcement, " Cash for produce." 

At Carbondale there was no coal at all to be found, but 
several miles farther to the north, at a place called Dugoine, 
a field of bituminous deposit crops out, whicii is sold at the 
pit's mouth for one dollar twenty-five cents, or about 5s. 2rf. 
a ton. Darkness and night fell as 1 was noting such meagre 
particulars of the new drstrict as could be learned out of the 
window of a railway carriage ; and finally with a delicious 
sensation of cool night air creeping in through the windows, 



350 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the first I had experienced for many a lonj^ day, we made 
ourselves up for repose, and were borne steadily, if not rapid- 
ly, through the great prairie, having halted for tea at the 
comfortable refreshment rooms of Centralia. 

There were no physical signs to mark the transition from 
the land of the Secessionist to Union-loving soil. Until the 
troops were quartered there, Cairo was for Secession, and 
Southern Illinois is supposed to be deeply tainted with disaf- 
fection to Mr. Lincoln. Placards on which were printed the 
words, " Vote for Lincoln and Hamlin, for Union and Free- 
dom," and the old battle-cry of the last election, still cling to 
the wooden walls of the groceries, often accompanied by bitter 
words or offensive additions. 

One of my friends argues that as slavery is at the base of 
Secession, it follows that States or portions of States will be 
disposed to join the Confederates or the Federalists, just as 
the climate may be favorable or adverse to the growth of 
slave produce. Thus in tlie mountainous parts of the Border 
States of Kentucky and Tennessee, in the north-western part 
of Virginia, vulgarly called the pan-handle, and in the pine 
woods of North Carolina, where white men can work at the 
rosin and naval store manufactories, tJiere is a decided feeling 
in favor of the Union ; in fact, it becomes a matter of iso- 
thermal lines. It would be very wrong to judge of the con- 
dition of a people from the windows of a railway carriage, 
but the external aspect of the settlements along the line, far 
superior to that of slave hamlets, does not equal ray ex- 
pectations. We all know the aspect of a wood in a gentle- 
man's park ; wiiich is submitting to the axe, and has been par- 
tially cleared, how raw and bleak the stumps look, and how 
dreary is the naked land not yet turned into arable. Take 
such a patch, and fancy four or five houses made of pine 
planks, sometimes not painted, lighted by windows in which 
there is, or has been, glass, each guarded by a paling ai'ound 
a piece of vegetable garden, a pig house, and poultry box ; 
let one be a grocery, which means a whiskey shop, another 
the post-office, and a third the store where " casij is given for 
produce." Multiply these groups, if you desire a larger set- 
tlement, and place a wooden church with a Brobdignag spii'e 
and Lilliputian body out in a waste, to be approached oidy by 
a causeway of planks ; before each grocery let there be a 
gathering of tall men in sombre clothing, of whom tiie ma- 
jority have small newspapers, and all of whom are chewing 



I 



PRAIRIE SCENES. 351 

tobacco ; near the stores let there be some light-wheeled carts 
and ragged horses, around which are knots of iinmistal<ably 
German women ; then see the deep tracks wliich lead otF to 
similar settlements in the forest or prairie, and you have a 
notion, if your imagination is strong enough, of one of these 
civilizing centres which the Americans assert to be the homes 
of the most cultivated and intelligent communities in the 
world. 

Next morning, just at dawn, I woke up and got out on the 
platform of the carriage, which is tiie favorite resort of 
smokers and their antithetics, those who love pure fresh air, 
notwithstanding the printed caution, " It is dangerous to stand 
on the platform ; " and under the eye of early morn saw 
spread around a flat sealike expanse, not yet warmed into 
color and life by the sun. The line was no longer guarded 
from daring Secessionists by soldiers' outposts, and small 
camps had disappeared. The train sped through the centre 
of the great verdant circle as a ship through the sea, leaving 
the rigid iron wake behind it tapering to a point at the ho- 
rizon and as the light spread over it, the_ surface of the crisp- 
ing corn waved in broad undulations beneath the breeze from 
east to west. This is the prairie indeed. Hereabouts it is 
covered with the finest crops, some already cut and stacked. 
Looking around one could see church spires rising in the 
distance from the white patches of houses, and by degrees 
the tracks across the fertile waste became apparent, and then 
carts and horses were seen toiling through the rich soil. 

A large species of partridge or grouse a[)peared very abun- 
dant, and rose in flocks from the long grass at the side of the 
rail or from the rich carpet of flowers on the margin of the 
corn-fields. They sat on tiie fence almost unmoved by the 
rushing engine, and literally swarmed along the line. These 
are called " prairie chickens " by the people, and afford ex- 
cellent sport. Another bird about the size of a thrush, with 
a yellow breast and a harsh cry, I learned was " the sky-lark ; " 
and apropos of tiie unmusical creature, I was very briskly 
attacked by a young lady patriot for finding fault with the 
sharp noise it made. " Oh, my ! And you not to know that 
your Shelley loved it above all things ! Didn't he write some 
verses — quite beautiful, too, they are — to the sky-lark?" 
And so " the Britisher was dried up," as I read in a paper 
afterwards of a similar occurrence. 

At the little stations which occur at every few miles — • 



352 MY I>IARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

there are some forty of tliem, at each of which the train stops, 
in SC) miles bctvv(;eii C'airo and Ciiicaj^o — the Union flag 
floated in tlie air; but we had h-ft all the circumstance of this 
iuf^lorious war behind us, and the train rattled boldly over tlie 
bridges across the rare streams, no longer in danger from S<> 
cession hatchets. The swam[» had given i)lac<; to tht; corn- 
field. No bhick faces were turned up from the inowing and 
free white labor was at work, and the type of the laborers 
was German and Irish. 

The Yorkshireman expatiated on the fertility of the land, 
and on the advantag(!s it held out to the emigrant. But I ob- 
served all the lots by the side of the rail, and apparently as 
far as the eye could reach, were occupied. " Some of the 
very be^st land lies beyond on each side," said In;. " Out over 
there in the fat places is where we put our Englishmen." By 
digging deep enough good water is always to be had, and coal 
can be carried from the rail, where it costs only 7s. or 8*. a 
ton. Wood there is little or none in the prairies, and it was 
rarely indeed a clump of trees could be detected, or anything 
higher than some scrub brushwood. Those little connnunities 
which we passed were but the growth of a few years, and as we 
approached the northern portion of the line we could see, as it 
were, the village swelling into the town, and the town spread- 
ing out to the dimensions of the city. " I dare say, Major," 
says one of the passeng(U's, " this gentleman never saw any- 
thing like these cities before. I'm told they've nothing like 
them in Europe?" " Bless you," rejoined the Major, with a 
wink, "just leaving out London, Edinbro', Paris, and Man- 
chester, there's notliing on earth to ekal them." My friend, 
who is a shrewd fellow, by way of explanation of his military 
title, says, " I was a major once, a major in the Queen's Bays, 
but they would put troo[)-sergeant before it them days." Like 
many Englishmen he complains that the jealousy of native- 
born Americans etf(;ctually bars the way to political position 
of any naturalized citizen, and all the places are kept by the 
natives. 

The scene now began to change gradually as we approached 
Chicago, th(! |)rairie subsided into swampy land, and thick 
belts of trees fringed the horizon; on our right glimpses of 
the sea could be caught through openings in the wood — the 
inland sea on which stands the Queen of the Lakes. Michi- 
gan looks broad and blue as the Mediterranean. Large farm- 
lionsea stud the country, and houses which must be the retreat 



APPKOACII TO CHICAGO. 353 

of merchants and citizens of means ; and when the train, 
leavinj; th(! land al(uji;('lli('r, dashes oiitona pier and causeway 
hiiilt uloiit; the hurders of tlie lake, we see lines of nolde 
houses, a line boulevard, a forest of masts, hu<i;e isolated piles 
of masonry, the famed grain elevators Ity whicli so many hav(! 
been hoisted to fortune, chinrluis and i»ublie (Mhlices, and the 
ap|)aralus of a great city ; and just at nine o'cdock the train 
gives its last steam shout and comes to a standstill in tin; spa- 
cious station of the Central Illinois Company, and in Iialf-an- 
hour more I am in comfortabh; (jiiarlers at the llichmond 
House, where I fmd letters waiting for me, by wliieh it aj)- 
pears that (he n(!C(\s.sity for my being in Washington in all 
haste, no longer exists. The wary (ieneral who commands 
the army is aware that th(! advance to Ivicinnond, for which 
so many journals are clamoring, would be attended with seri- 
ous risk at present, and the politicians must be content to wait 
a little longer. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Progress of events — Policy of Great Britain as regarded by tlie North 
— The American press <ind its comments — Privacy a luxury — 
Chicago — Senator Douglas and his widow — American ingrati- 
tude — Apathy in volunteering — Colonel Turchin's camp. 

I SHALL here briefly recapitulate what has occurred since 
the last mention of political events. 

In the first place the South has been developing every day 
greater energy in widening the breach between it and the 
North, and preparing to fill it with dead ; and the North, so 
far as I can judge, has been busy in raising up the Union as 
a nationality, and making out the crime of treason from the 
act of Secession. The South has been using conscription in 
Virginia, and is entering upon the conflict with unsurpassable 
determination. The North is avaiUng itself of its greater re- 
sources and its foreign vagabondage and destitution to swell 
the ranks of its volunteers, and boasts of its enormous armies, 
as if it supposed conscripts well led do not fight better than 
volunteers badly officered. Virginia has been invaded on 
three points, one below and two above Washington, and pass- 
ports are now issued on both sides. 

The career open to the Southern privateers is effectually 
closed by the Duke of Newcastle's notification that the British 
Government will not permit the cruisers of either side to bring 
their prizes into or condemn them in English ports ; but, 
strange to say, the Northerners feel indignant against Great 
Britain for an act which deprives their enemy of an enormous 
advantage, and which must reduce their privateering to the 
mere work of plunder and destruction on the high seas. In 
the same way the North affects to consider the declaration of 
neutrality, and the concession of limited belligerent rights to 
the seceding States, as deeply injurious and insulting ; whereas 
our course has, in fact, removed the greatest difficulty from 
the path of the Washington Cabinet, and saved us from in- 
consistencies and serious risks in our course of action. 



A 



THE QUEEN'S PROCLAMATION. 355 

It is commonly said, " What would Great Britain have done 
if we had declared ourselves neutral dining the Canadian re- 
bellion, or had conceded limited belligerent rights to the Se- 
poys ? " as if Canada and liindostan have the same relation 
to the British Crown that the seceding States had to the 
Northern S-tates. But if Canada, with its parliament, judges, 
courts of law, and its people, declared it was independent of 
Great Britain ; and if the Government of Great Britain, 
months after that declaration was mad(; and acted upon, per- 
mitted the new State to go free, whilst a large number of her 
Statesmen agreed that Canada was perfectly light, we could 
find little fault with the United States Governmijnt for issuing 
a proclamation of neuti-ality the same as our own, wiien after 
a long interval of quiescence a war broke out between the 
two countries. 

Secession was an accomplished fact months before Mr. Lin- 
coln came into otlice, but we heard no talk of rebels and pirates 
till Sumter had fallen, and the North was perfectly quiescent 
— not only that — the people of wealth in New York were 
cahnly considering the results of Secession as an accomplished 
fact, and seeking to make the best of it ; nay, more, when I 
arrived in Wasiiington some members of the Cabinet were 
perfectly ready to let the South go. 

One of the tirst questions put to me by Mr. Chase in my 
first interview with him, was wiiether I thought a very inju- 
rious etii^ct would be j)rodueed to the 'prestiye of the Federal 
Government in Europe if the Northern States let the South 
have its own way, and told them to go in peace. " For my 
own part," said he, "1 should not be averse to let them try it, 
for I believe tliey would soon hnd out their mistake." Mr. 
Cliase may be finding out his mistake just now. When I left 
England the prevalent opinion, as far as I could judge, was, 
tiiat a family quarrel, in which the South was in the wrong, 
had taken |)laee, and that it would be better to stand by and 
let the Goverunient put forth its strengh to cliastis(; rebellious 
children. But now we see the house is divided against itself, 
and that the family are determined to set up two separate 
establishments. These remarks occur to me with the more 
fbice because I see the New York papers are attacking me 
because 1 described a calm in a sea which was afterwards 
agitated by a stoiwn. " What a false witness is this," they 
cry ; " see how angry and how vexed is our Bermoothes, and 
yet the fellow says it was quite placid." 



356 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

I have already seen so many statements respecting my say- 
ings, my doings, and my opinions, in the American papers, 
that I have resolved to follow a general rule, with few excep- 
tions indeed, whicli prescribes as the best course to pursue, 
not so much an indifference to these remarks as a fixed pur- 
pose to abstain from the hopeless task of correcting them. 
The " Quicklys " of the press are incorrigible. Commerce 
may well be proud of Chicago. I am not going to reiterate 
what evei'y Crispinus from the old country has said again and 
again concerning this wonderful place — not one word of sta- 
tistics, of corn elevators, of shipping, or of tlie piles of build- 
ings raised from the foundation by ingenious applications of 
screws. Nor am I going to enlarge on the splendid future of 
that which has so much present prosperity, or on tlie benefits 
to mankind opened up by the Illinois Central Railway. It 
is enough to say that by the borders of this lake there has 
sprung up in thirty years a wonderful city of fine streets, lux- 
urious hotels, handsome shops, magnificent stores, great ware- 
houses, extensive quays, capacious docks ; and that as long 
as corn holds its own, and the mouths of Europe are open, 
and her hands full, Chicago will acquire greater importance, 
size, and wealth with every year. The only drawback, per- 
haps, to the comfort of the money-making inhabitants, and of 
the stranger within the gates, is to be found in the clouds of 
dust and in the unpaved streets and thoroughfares, which give 
anguish to horse and man. 

I spent three days here writing my letters and repairing the 
wear and tear of my Southern expedition ; and although it was 
hot enough, the breeze from the lake carried health and vigor 
to the frame, enervated by the sun of Louisiana and Missis- 
sippi. No need now to wipe the large drops of moisture from 
the languid brow lest they blind the eyes, nor to sit in a state 
of semi-clothing, worn out and exhausted, and tracing with 
moist hand imperfect characters on the paper. 

I could not satisfy myself whether there was, as I have been 
told, a peculiar state of feeling in Chicago, which induced many 
people to support the Government of Mr. Lincoln because they 
believed it necessary for their own interest to obtain decided 
advantages over the South in the field, whilst they were opposed 
totis viribus to the genius of emancipation and to the views of 
the Black Republicans. But the genius and eloquence of the 
Little Giant have left their impress on the facile mould of dem- 
ocratic thought ; and he who argued with such acuteness and 



REPUBLICAN INGRATITUDE. S.")? 

ability last IVrarch in Washington, in his own stndy, against 
the [K)ssihility, or at least tho constilutional h^gality, of nsing 
the national tbi-cos, and the militia and volnnteors oC the North- 
ern States, to snhjugate the Sonthern people, earried away by 
the great bore whieh rnshed through the placid North when 
Snuiter fell, or perceiving his inability to resist its force, sprinig 
to the crest of the wave, and carried to excess the violence of 
the Union reaction. 

Whilst I was in the South I had seen his name in Northern 
])apers with sensation headings and descriptions of his niagnili- 
ei'nt crusade for tht; Union in the West. 1 had heard his name 
reviled by those who had once been bis warm political allies, 
and his untimely death did not seeuj to satisfy tiieir hatred. 
His old foes in the North admireil and applauded the sudden 
apostasy of their elocpient op|)onent, and W(!r(^ loud in lamenta- 
tions over bis loss. Imagine, then, how I felt when visiting 
bis grave at Chicago, si-eing his bust in many houscvs, or his 
portrait in all the shop-windows, I was told that the enor- 
mously wealthy community of which be was the idol were 
permitting bis wiilow to live in a state not far removed from 
penury. 

" Senator Douglas, sir," observed one of bis friends to me, 
" died of bad whiskey. lie killed himself with it while be was 
stumping tor the Union all over the country." " Well," I said, 
" I suppose, sir, the abstraction called the Union, for wbii^b by 
your own account be killed himself, will give a pension to his 
widow." Virtue is its own reward, and so is patriotism, un- 
less it takes the form of contracts. 

As far as all considerations of wife, children, or family are 
concerned, let a man serve a decent despot, or even a constitu- 
tional country with an economi/ing House of Commons, if he 
wants anything more substantial than lip-service. The history 
of the great men of America is full of instances of national in- 
gratitude. They give more praise and less pence to their 
benefactors than any nation on the face of the earth. Wash- 
ington got little, though the plundering scouts who captured 
Andre were well rewarded ; and the men who fought during 
the War of Independence were long left in neglect and poverty, 
sitting in sackcloth and ashes at tlu- doorsteps of the temi)le of 
liberty, wliilst tiie crowd rushed inside to worship Plutus. 

If a native of the British Isles, of the natural ignorance of 
bis own imperfections which should characterize him, desires 
to be subjected to a series of moral shower-baths, douches, and 



358 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

shampooing with a rough glove, let him come to the United 
States. In Chicago he will be told that the English people 
are fed by the beneficence of the United States, and that all 
the trade and commerce of England are simply directed to the 
one end of obtaining gold enough to pay the Western States 
for the breadstuffs exported for our population. We know 
what the South think of our dependence on cotton. The peo- 
ple of the East think they are striking a great blow at their 
enemy by tlie Morrill tariff and I was told by a patriot in 
North Carolina, " Why, creation ! if you let the Yankees shut 
up our ports, the whole of your darned ships will go to rot. 
Where will you get your naval stores from ? Why, I guess 
in a year you could not scrape up enough of tarpentine in the 
whole of your country for Queen Victoria to paint her nursery- 
door with." 

Nearly one half of the various companies enrolled in this 
district are Germans, or are the descendants of German par- 
ents, and speak only the language of the old country ; two- 
thirds of the remainder are Irish, or of immediate Irish descent ; 
but it is said that a grand reserve of Americans born lies be- 
hind this avaiit garde, who will come into the battle should 
there ever be need for their services. 

Indeed so long as the Northern people furnish the means of 
paying and equipping armies perfectly competent to do their 
work, and equal in numbers to any demands made for men, 
they may rest satisfied with the accomplishment of that duty, 
and with contributing from their ranks the great majority of 
the superior and even of the subaltern oflacers ; but with the 
South it is far different. Their institutions have repelled im- 
migration ; tiie black slave has barred the door to the white 
free settler. Only on the seaboard and in the large cities are 
German and Irish to be found, and they to a man have come 
forward to fight for the South ; but the proffortion they bear to 
the native-born Americans who have rushed to arms in de- 
fence of their menaced borders, is of course far less than it is 
as yet to the number of Americans in the Northern States who 
have volunteered to fight for the Union. 

I was invited before I left to visit the camp of a Colonel 
Turchin, who was described to me as a Russian officer of 
great ability and experience in Eui'opean warfare, in com- 
mand of a regiment consisting of Poles, Hungarians, and 
Germans, who were about to start for the seat of war ; but I 
was only able to walk through his tents, where I was aston- 



UNION COSSACKS. 359 

ished at the amalgam of nations that constituted his battalion ; 
though, on inspection, I am bound to say there proved to be an 
American element in the ranks which did not appear to have 
coalesced with the bulk of the rude, and, I fear, predatory Cos- 
sacks of the Union. Many young men of good position have 
gone to the wars, although there was no complaint, as in South- 
ern cities, that merchants' offices have been deserted, and great 
establishments left destitute of clerks and working hands. In 
warlike operations, however, Chicago, with its communication 
open to the sea, its access to the head waters of the Mississip- 
pi, its intercourse with the marts of commerce and of manufac- 
ture, may be considered to possess greater belligerent power 
and strength than the great city of New Orleans ; and there 
is much greater probability of Chicago sending its contingent 
to attack the Crescent City than there is of the latter being 
able to despatch a soldier within five hundred miles of its 
streets. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

Niagara — Impression of the Falls — Battle scenes in the neighbor- 
hood — A village of Indians — General Scott — Hostile move- 
ments on both sides — The Hudson — Military school at West 
I'oint — Return to New York — Altered appearance of the city. 
— Misery and suffc'ring — Altered state of public opinion, as to 
the Union and towards Great Britain. 

'At eight o'clock on the morning of the 27th I left Chicago 
for Niagara, which was so temptingly near that I resolved to 
make a detour hy that route to IS^ew York. Tlie line from the 
city which 1 took skirts tlie southern extremity of Lake Mich- 
igan for many miles, and leaving its borders at New Buffalo, 
traverses thesouth(;rn portion of the state of Micliigan by Al- 
bion and Jackson to the town of Detroit, or the outflow of Lake 
St. Clair into Lake Erie, a distance of 284 miles, which was 
accomplished in about twelve hours. The most enthusiastic 
patriot could not atlinn the country Avas interesting. The 
names of the stations were certainly novel to a Britisher. 
Thus we had Kalumet, Pokagon, Dowagiac, Kalamazoo, Ypsi- 
lanti, among the more familiar titles of Chelsea, Marengo, Al- 
bion, and Parma. 

It was dusk when we reached the steam ferry-boat at De- 
troit, which took us across to Windsor; but through the dusk I 
could jx^rceive the Union Jack waving above the unimpressive 
little town which bears a name so respected by British ears. 
Tiie customs' inspections seemed very mild ; and I was not 
much impressed by the representative of the British crown, 
who, with a brass button on his coat and a very husky voice, 
exercised his powers on behalf of Her Majesty at the landing- 
place of Windsor. The olHcers of the railway company re- 
ceived me as if I had been an old friend, and welcomed me 
as if I had just got out of a battle-licld. " Well, I do wonder 
them Yankees have ever let you come out alive." " May I 
ask why?" " Oh, because you have not been praising them all 
round, sir. Why even the Northern chaps get angry with a 



I 



NIAGARA FAI-LS. 361 

Britisher, as Uiey cfill us, if he attempts to say a word against 
those eiii-sed niggers." 

•It did not appear the Amerieans are quite so thin-skinned, 
for whilst crossing in tlie steamer a passage of arms between 
the Captain, who was a genuine John liul!, and a Mitdiigan- 
der, in the styh^ wliicli is calhid eliafl" or shuig, diverted most 
of the auditors, allhougli it wa^j very miicli (o the disadvan- 
tage of tlie Union champion. Tiie JNIichigan man iiad threat- 
ened the Cajitain that Cana(Ui would be annexed as the con- 
sequence of our infamous conchict. " Wiiy, T tell you," said 
the Captain, " we'd just draw up the negro chaps from oiu" 
barbers' slio|)s, and tell them we'd send them to Illinois if 
tlu^y did not lick you ; and 1 believe every creature in Michi- 
gan, pigs and ail, would run before them into Pennsylvania. 
We know what you are up to, you and them Maine cha[)s ; 
but Lor' bless you, sooner than take such a lot, we'd give you 
ten dollars a head (o make you stay in your own country; 
and we know you woidd go to the next worst place l)efor(! 
your time for half the money. The very Bhu^noses would 
seceile if you were permitted to come uiuhn- the old (lag." 

All night we travelled. A long day through a dreaiy, ill- 
settled, pine-wooded, half-cleared country, swarming with mos- 
quitoes and biting Hies, and famous for fevers. Just about 
daybi'eak the train stopped. 

" Now, then," said an P^nglish voice ; " now, then, whg's for 
Clifton Hotel ? All jjassengers leave cars for this side ol' the 
Falls." Consi";nin'' our ba";m>}^c to the conmiissioner of the, 
CHiftou, my companion, Mr. Ward, and myself resolved to 
walk along the banks of the river to the hotel, which is some 
two miles and a half distant, and set out whilst it was still so 
obscure that the outline of the beautiful bridge which springs 
so lightly across the chasm, tilled with furious hurrying waters, 
hundreds of feet below, was visible only as is the tracery of 
some cathedral arch through the dim light of the cloister. 

The road follows the coui'se of the stream, which whirls 
and gurgles in an Alpine torrent, many times magnilied, in a 
deep gorge like that of the Tet(; Noire. As the rude bellow 
(jf the steam-engine and the rattle of the train proceeding on 
its journey were dying away, the echoes seemed to swell into 
a sustained, r(!verberaling, hollow sound from the perpendicu- 
lar baidvs of the St. Liuvrence. We listened. " It is the 
noise of the Falls," said my companion ; and as we walked 
on the sound became louder, filling the air with a strange 
16 



862 MY DIARY N(^UTII ANO SOTtI'II. 

quaveriii!:; nolo, wliioli played about a tirnuMuloiis unilorm 
bass not(>, and siU'iu'injr every otli(>r. Trees closed in the road 
on (he river side ; bnt when we had walked a mile or so, the 
lovely light of niorninj; spreadinii; with onr steps, snddenly 
throncjh an opening in the; branches there appeared, closing np 
the vista — white, flickering, indistinct, and shroud-like — the 
Falls, rushing into a grave of black waters, and uttering that 
treuu'n(h)us cry which can never be forgotten. 

1 have lu^anl many people say they were disappointed with 
the first impression of Niagara. liCt those who desire to see 
the water-leap in all its graudtMir, approach it as I did, and I 
cannot conceive what their ex})ectalions are if they do not 
confess the sight exceeded their highest ideal. I do not pre- 
tend to describe the sensations or to endeavor to give the effect 
produced on me by the scene or by the Falls, then or subse- 
quently; but I must say words can do no more than confuse 
the writer's own ideas of the grandeur of the sight, and mis- 
lead altogether those wlio read them. It is of no avail to do 
h\borious statistics, and tell us how many gallons rush over in 
that down-flung ocean every second, or how wide it is, how 
high it is, how de(>p the earth-piercing caverns beneath. For 
my own part, I always feel the distance of the sun to be insig- 
nilicant, when I read it is so many hundreds of thousands of 
miles awav, compared with the feeling of utter inaccessibility 
to anvlliiiig human which is caused by it when its setting rays 
illuminate some purple ocean studdctl with golden islands in 
drt'amland. 

Niagara is rolling its wati'rs over the barrier. Larger and 
louder it grows upon us. 

" I hope the hotel is not full," quoth my friend. I confess, 
for the time, I forgot all about Niagara, and was perturbed 
concerning a breakl'aslless rauible and a hunt after lodgings 
by the borders of the great river. 

But although (^liflon Motel was full enough, there was room 
for us, too ; and for two days a strange, weird kind of life I 
led, alternating between the mar of the cataract outside and 
the din of politics within ; for, be it known, that at the Cana- 
dian side of the Falls many Americans of the Southern States, 
■who would not pollute their footsteps by contact with the soil 
of Yankee-land, were sojourning, and that merchants ai\d 
bankers of New York and other Northern cities had selected 
it as their summer retreat, and, indeed, with reason : for al'ler 
excursions on both sides of the Falls, tlu" com[iarative seclu- 



I 



IIARriES OF THE FALLS. ,"03 

sion of tho settloiucnts on the left bank appears to me to ren- 
der it infinitely preferable to the Roslierville jjentism and 
senii-rowdvisin of the large American hotels and settlements 
on the other side. 

It was distressinfj to find that Niagara was siirronnd(>d by 
the para[>herna!ia of a fixed fair. I liad looked forward to a 
certain dt>i;ree of solitude. It appeared inipossible that man 
could eockneyfy sneh a maiinilieent display of foro<! and s;ran- 
deur in nature. l>ut, alas ! it is haunted by what poor Albert 
Smith used to denominate " harpi<'s." Tlie hatef'ul raee of 
guides infest the preeinets of the hot(>ls, wavlay you in the 
lanes, and prowl about the unjjjiiarded mointMits of reverie. 
There are miserable little peep-sliows and piiotoj;raphers, bird- 
stutters, shell-polishers, eolleetors of crystals, and proprietors 
of natural curiosity shops. 

There is, besides, ii large village population. There is a 
watering-side air about the [>eople who walk along the road 
worse than all their mills and factories working their water- 
privileges at both sides of the streaai. At the Americau 
side there is a lanky, pretentious town, with big hotels, shops 
of Indian curiosities, and all the meagre forms of the bazaar 
life reduced to a minimum of attractiveness which destroy the 
comfort of a traveller in Switzerland. I had scarcely been 
an hour in the hotel before I was asked to look at the Falls 
through a little piece of colored glass. Next I was solicited 
to purchase a collection of muddy photographs, representing 
what I could look at with my own eyes for nothing. Not fin- 
ally by any means, I was assailed by a gentleman who was 
particularly desirous of selling me an enormous pair of cow's- 
horns and a stuffed hawk. Small booths and peep-shows cor- 
rupt the very margin of tlie bank, and close by the remnant 
of the '* Table Rock," a Jew (who, by the by, descM-ves infinite 
credit for the zeal and energy he has thrown into the collec- 
tions for his museum), exhibits bottled rattlesnakes, stutti'd 
monkeys, Egyptian mummies, series of coins, with a small 
living menagerie attached to the shop, in which articles of 
Indian manufacture are exposed for sale. It was too bad to 
be asked to admire such htsus naturce as double-headed calves 
and dogs with three necks by the banks of Niagara. 

As I saitl before, I am not going to essay the impossible or 
to describe tin; Falls. On the English side there are, inde- 
pendently of other attractions, some scenes of recent historic 
interest, for close to Niagara are Lundy's Lane and Chippewa. 



364 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

There arc few persons in England aware of" the exceedingly 
severe fighting which chai-acterized the contests between the 
Americans and the JiiiigUsh and Canadian troops during the 
campaign of 1814. At Chipjjewa, for example, Major-Geii- 
eral Riall, who, with 2000 men, one howitzer, and two twenty- 
four-pounders, attacked a force of Americans of a similar 
strength, was repulsed with a loss of 500 killed and wounded ; 
and on the morning of the 2oth of July the action of Lundy's 
Lane, between four brigades of Americans and seven field- 
pieces, and 3100 men of the British and seven field-pieces, 
took place, in which the Americans were worsted, and retii'ed 
with a loss of 854 men and two guns, whilst the British lost 
%>/-•'•' 878. On the 14th of August following. Sir Gordon Drum- 
t'jtj!5i>i>* ,.^ mond was repulsed with a loss of 905 men out of his small 
force in an attack on F'ort Erie; and on the 17th of Septem- 
ber an American sortie from the place was defeated with a 
loss of 510 killed and wounded, the British having. lost G09. 
In effect the American campaign was unsuccessful ; but their 
failures were redeemed by their successes on Lake Cham[)lain, 
and in the affair of Plattsburg. 

There was more hard fighting than strategy in these battles, 
and their results were not, on tlije whole, creditable to the 
military skill of either party. They were sanguinary in pro- 
portion to the number of troops engaged, but they were very 
petty skirmishes considered in the light of contests between 
two great nations for the purpose of obtaining specific results. 
As England was engaged in a great war in Europe, was far 
removed fi'om the scene of operations, was destitute of steam- 
power, whilst America was fighting, as it were, on her own 
soil, close at hand, with a full opportunity of putting forth all 
her strength, the complete defeat of the American invasion of 
Canada was more honorable to our arms than the successes 
wiiich the Americans achieved in resisting aggressive demon- 
strations. 

In the great hotel of Clifton we had every day a little war 

of our own, for there were but why should I mention 

names ? Has not government its bastiles ? There were in 
effect men, and women too, who regarded the people of the 
Northern States and the government they had selected very 
nnich as the men of '98 looked upon tlie government and 
people of England ; but withal these strong Southerners were 
not very favorable to a country which they regarded as the 
natural ally of the abolitionists, simply because it luul resolved 
to be neutral. 



LIFE AT NIAGARA. 365 

On the Canadian side these rebels were secure. British 
authority was embodied in a respectable old Scottish gentle- 
man, whose duty it was to prevent smuggling across the boil- 
ing watcu-s of the St. Lawrence, and who performed it with 
zeal and diligence worthy of a Iiigher post. There was in- 
deed a withered tnumphal arch which stood over the spot 
where the young Prince of our royal house had passed on liis 
way to the Table Rock, but beyond these signs and tokens 
there was nothing to distinguish the American from the Brit- 
ish side, except the greater size and activity of the settlements 
upon the right bank. There is no power in nature, according 
to great engineers, which cannot be forced to succumb to the 
influence of money. The American papers actually announce 
that " Niagara is to be sold ; " the proprietors of the land 
upon their side of the water have resolved to sell their water 
privileges ! A capitalist could render the islands the most 
beautifully attractive places in the world. 

Life at Niagara is like that at most watering-places, though 
it is a desecration to apply such a terra to the Falls ; and 
there is no bathing there, except that which is confined to the 
precincts of the hotels and to the ingenious establishment on 
the American side, which permits one to enjoy the full rush 
of the current in covered rooms with sides pierced, to let it 
come through with undiminished force and with perfect security 
to the bather. There are drives and pic-nics, and mild ex- 
cursions to obscure places in the neighborhood, where only 
the roar of the Falls gives an idea of their presence. The 
rambles about the islands, and the views of the boiling rapids 
above them, are delightful ; but I am glad to hear from one 
of the guides that the great excitement of seeing a man and 
boat carried over occurs but rarely. Every year, however, 
hapless creatures crossing from one shore to the other, by 
some error of judgment or miscalculation of strength, or 
malign influence, are swept away into The rapids, and then, 
notwithstanding the wonderful rescues effected by the Amer- 
ican blacksmith and unwonted kindnesses of fortune, there is 
little chance of saving body corporate or incorporate from the 
headlong swoop to destruction. 

Next to the purveyors of curiosities and hotel-keepers, the 
Indians, who live in a village at some distance from Niagara, 
reap the largest profit from the crowds of visitors who repair 
annually to the Falls. They are a harmless and by no means 
elevated race of semi-civilized savages, whose energies are 



366 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

expended on whiskey, feather fans, bark canoes, ornamental 
moceasons, and carved pipe-stems. I liad arranjjed for an ex- 
cursion to see them in their win;\vams one morning, when the 
news was brouglit to me that General Scott had ordered, or 
been forced to order the advance of the Federal troops en- 
camped in front of Washington, nnder the command of Mc- 
Dowell, against the Confederates, commanded by Beauregard, 
who was described as occupying a most formidable position, 
covered with entrenchments and batteries in front of a ridge 
of hills, through which the railway passes to Richmond. 

The New York papers rein-esent the Federal army to be of 
some grand indefinite strength, varying from 60,000 to 1 20,000 
men, full of fight, admirably equipped, well disciplined, and 
provided with an overwhelming force of artillery. General 
Scott, I am very well assured, did not feel such confidence in 
the result of an invasion of Virginia, that he would hurry raw 
levies and a rabble of regiments to undertake a most arduous 
military operation. 

Tiie day I was introduced to the General he was seated at 
a table in the unpretending room which served as his boudoir 
in the still humbler house where he held his head-quarters. 
On the table before him were some plans and maps of the har- 
bor defences of the Southern ports. I inferred he was about 
to organize a force for the occupation of positions along the 
coast. But when I mentioned my impression to one of his 
officers, he said, " Oh, no, the General advised that long ago ; 
but he is now convinced we are too late. All he can hope, 
now, is to be allowed time to prepare a force for the field, but 
there are hopes that some compromise will yet take place." 

The probabilities of this compromise have vanished ; few 
entertain them now. They have been hanging Secessionists 
in Illiniois, and the court-house itself has been made the scene 
of Lynch law murder in Ogle county. Petitions, prepared by 
citizens of New Yort to the President, for a general conven- 
tion to consider a compromise, have been seized. The Con- 
federates have raised batteries along the Virginian shore of 
the Potomac. Genei'al Banks, at Baltimore, has deposed the 
police authorities ^^ propria motu," in spite of the protest of 
the board. Engagements have occurred between the Federal 
steamers and the Confederate batteries on the Potomac. On 
all points, wherever the Federal pickets have advanced in Vir- 
ginia, they have encountered opposition and have been obliged 
to halt or to retire. 



WEST POINT. 867 

As I stood on the veranda this morning, looking for the 
hist time on the Falls, which were covered with a gray mist, 
that rose from the river and towered unto the sky in columns 
which were lost in the clouds, a voice beside me said, " INlr. 
Russell, that is something like the present condition of our 
country, mists and darkness obscure it now, but we know the 
gri^at waters are rushing behind, and will flow till eternity." 
The speaker was an earnest, thoughtful man, but the country 
of which he spoke was the land of the South. " And do you 
think," said I, " when the mists clear away the Falls will be as 
full and as grand as before ? " " Well," he replied, " they are 
great as it is, though a rock divides them ; we have merely 
thrown our rock into the waters, — they will meet all the same 
in the pool below." A colored boy, who has waited on me at 
the hotel, hearing I was going away, entreated me to take him 
on any terms, which were, I found, an advance of nine dolitu's, 
and twenty dollars a month, and, as I heard a good account of 
him from the landlord, I installed the young man into my 
service. In the evening I left Niagara on my way to New 
York. 

Juli/ 2d. — At early dawn this morning, looking out of 
the sleeping car, I saw througli the mist a broad, placid river 
on the right, and on the left high wooded banks running 
sharply into the stream, against the base of which the rails 
were laid. West Point, which is celebrated for its picturesque 
scenery, as much as for its military school, could not be seen 
through the fog, and I regretted time did not allow me to stop 
and pay a visit to the acadeni}'. I was obliged to content my- 
self with the handiwork of some of the ex-pupils. The only 
camaraderie I have witnessed in Ameiica exists among the 
West Point men. It is to Americans what our great public 
schools are to young Englishmen. To take a high place at 
West Point is to be a first-class man, or wrangler. The 
academy turns out a kind of military aristocracy, and I have 
heard complaints that the Irish and Germans are almost com- 
j)letely excluded, because the nominations to West Point 
are obtained by political influence ; and the foreign element, 
tiiougli powerful at tiie ballot-box, has no enduring strength. 
The Murphies and Schmidts seldom succeed in shoving their 
sons into the American institution. North and South, I have 
observed, the old pupils refer everything military to West 
Point. " I was with Beauregard at West Point. He was 
thi'ee above me." Or, " McDowell and I were in the same 



368 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

class." An officer is measured by what he did there, and if 
professional jealousies date from the state of common pupilage, 
so do lasting friendships. I heard Beauregard, Lawton, 
Hardee, Bragg, and others, s})ealv of McDowell, Lyon, 
McClellan, and other men of the academy, as their names 
turned up in the Northern papers, evidently judging of them 
by the old school standard. The number of men who have 
been educated there greatly exceeds the modest requirements 
of the army. But there is likelihood of their being all in full 
work very soon. 

At about nine, A. u., the train reached New York, and in 
driving to the house of Mr. Duncan, who accompanied me 
from Niagara, the first thing which struck me was the changed 
aspect of the streets. Instead of peaceful citizens, men in 
military uniforms thronged the pathways, and such multitudes 
of United States flags floated from the windows and roofs of 
the houses as to convey the impression that it was a great 
holiday festival. The appearance of New York when 1 first 
saw it was very different. For one day, indeed, after my 
arrival, tliere were men in uniform to be seen in the streets, 
but they disappeared after St. Patrick had been duly honored, 
and it was very rarely I ever saw a man in soldier's clothes 
during the rest of my stay. Now, fully a third of the people 
carried arms, and were dressed in some kind of martial garb. 

The walls are covered with placards from military com- 
panies offering inducements to recruits. An outburst of mili- 
tary tailors has taken place in the streets ; shops are devoted 
to militia equipments ; rifles, pistols, swords, plumes, long 
boots, saddle, bridle, camp belts, canteens, tents, knapsacks, 
have usurped the place of the ordinary articles of traffic. 
Pictures and engravings — bad, and very bad — of the "bat- 
tles " of Big Bethel and Vienna, full of furious charges, smoke 
md dismembered bodies, have driven the French prints out 
)f the windows. Innumerable "General Scotts" glower at 
you from every turn, making the General look wiser than he 
or any man ever was, Ellsworths in almost equal proportion, 
Grebles and Winthrops — the Union martyrs — and Tompkins, 
the tem})orary hero of Fairfax court-house. 

The " flag of our country" is represented in a colored en- 
graving, the original of which was not destitute of poetical 
feeling, as an angry blue sky through which meteors fly 
streaked by the winds, whilst between the red stripes the 
stars just shine out from the heavens, the flag-stafl' being typi- 



NEW YORK AROUSED. 369 

fied by a forest tree bending to the force of the blast. The 
Americans hke this idea — to my mind it is significant of 
bloodshed and disaster. And why not ! What would become 
of all these pseudo-Zouaves who have come out like an erup- 
tion over tiie States, and are in no respect, not even in their 
baggy breeches, like their great originals, if this war were not 
to go on ? I thought I had had enough of Zouaves in New 
Orleans, but dU aliter tnsum. 

They are overrunning society, and the streets here, and the 
dress which becomes the broad-chested, stumpy, short-legged 
Celt, who seems specially intended for it, is singularly unbe- 
coming to the tall and slightly-built American. Songs " On 
to glory," " Our country," new versions of " Hail Columbia," 
which certainly cannot be considered by even American com- 
placency a " happy land " wlien its inhabitants are preparing 
to cut eac^h other's throats ; of the " star-spangled banner," are 
displayed in booksellers' and music-shop windows, and patri- 
otic sentences emblazoned on flags float from many houses. 
The ridiculous habit of dressing up children and young people 
up to ten and twelve years of age as Zouaves and vivandieres 
has been caught up by the old peo|)le, and Mars would die 
with laughter if he saw some of the abdominous, be-specta- 
cled light infantry men who are hobbling along the pavement. 

There has been indeed a change in New York ; externally 
it is most remarkable, but I cannot at all admit that the abuse 
with which I was assailed for describing the indifference which 
prevailed on my arrival was in the least degree justified. I 
was desirous of learning how far the tone of conversation " in 
the city " had altered, and soon after breakfast I went down 
Broadway to Pine Street and Wall Street. The street in all 
its length was almost draped with flags — the warlike charac- 
ter of the shops was intensified. In front of one shop window 
there was a large crowd gazing with interest at some object 
which I at last succeeded in feasting my eyes upon. A gray 
cap with a tinsel badge in front, and the cloth stained with 
blood was displayed, with the words, " Cap of Secession offi- 
cer killed in action." On my way I observed another crowd 
of women, some with children in their arms standing in front 
of a large house and gazing up earnestly and angrily at the 
windows. I found they were wives, mothers, and sisters, and 
daughters of volunteers who had gone off and left them des- 
titute. 

The misery thus caused has been so great that the citizens 
16* 



370 MY DIAllY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

of New York have raised a fund to provide food, clothes, and 
a little money • — a poor relief, in fact, for them, and it was 
plain they were much needed, though some of the applicants 
did not seem to belong to a class accustomed to seek aid from 
the public. Tiiis already ! But Wall Street and Pine Street 
are bent on battle. And so this day, hot from the South and 
impressed with the firm resolve of tlie people, and finding that 
the North has been lashing itself into fury, I sit down and 
write to England, on my return from the city. " At present 
dismiss entirely the idea, no matter how it may originate, that 
there will be, or can be, peace, compromise, union, or seces- 
sion, till war has determined the issue." 

As long as there was a chance that the struggle might not 
take place, the merchants of New York were silent, fearful of 
offending their Southern friends and connections, but inflicting 
infinite damage on their own government and misleading both 
sides. Their sentiments, sympathies, and business bound them 
with the South ; and, indeed, till " the glorious uprising " tlie 
South believed New York was with them, as might be cred- 
ited from the tone of some organs in the press, and I remem- 
ber hearing it said by Southerners in Washington, that it was 
very likely New York would go out of the Union ! When 
the merchants, however, saw the Soutli was determined to quit 
the Union, they resolved to avert the permanent loss of the 
great profits derived from their connection with the South by 
some present sacrifices. They rushed to the platforms — the 
battle-cry was sounded from almost every pulpit — flag-rais- 
ings took place in every square, like the planting of the tree 
of liberty in France in 1848, and the oath was taken to tram- 
ple Secession under foot, and to quench the fire of the South- 
ern heart forever. 

The change in manner, in tone, in argument, is most re- 
markable. 1 met men to-day who last March argued coolly 
and jdiilosophically about the right of Secession. They are 
now furious at the idea of such wickedness — furious with 
England, because she does not deny their own famous doctrine 
of the sacred right of insurrection. " We must maintain our 
glorious Union, sir." " We must have a country." " We 
cannot allow two nations to grow up on this Continent, sir." 
" We must possess the entire control of the Mississippi." 
These " musts," and " can'ts," and " won'ts," are the angry ut- 
terances of a spirited ])eo|)le who have had their will so long 
that they at last believe it is omnipotent. Assuredly, they 



IRRITATION AGAINST ENGLAND. 371 

will not have it over the South without a tremendous and 
long-sustained contest, in which they must put forth every ex- 
ertion, and use all the resources and superior means they so 
abundantly possess. 

It is absurd to assert, as do the New York people, to give 
some semblance of reason to theu' sudden outburst, that it was 
caused by the insult to the flag at Sumter. Why, the flag had 
been fired on long before Sumter was attacked by the Charleston 
batteries ! It had been torn down from United States arsenals 
and forts all over the South ; and but for the accident which 
placed Major Anderson in a position from wliich he could not 
retire, there would have been no bombardment of the fort, 
and it would, when evacuated, have shared the fate of all the 
other Federal works on the Southern coast. Some of the gen- 
tlemen who are now so patriotic and Unionistic, were last March 
prepared to maintain that if the President attempted to reen- 
force Sumter or Pickens, he would be responsible for the de- 
struction of the Union. Many journals in New York and out 
of it held the same doctrine. 

One word to these gentlemen. I am pretty well satisfied 
that if they had always spoken, written, and acted as they do 
now, the people of Charleston would not have attacked Sum- 
ter so readily. The abrupt outburst of the North and the 
demonstration at New York filled the South, first with aston- 
ishment, and then with something like feai", which was rapidly 
fanned into anger by the press and the politicians, as well as 
by the pride inherent in slaveholders. 

I wonder what Mr. Seward will say when I get back to 
Washington. Before I left, he was of opinion — at all events, 
he stated — that all the States would come back, at the rate 
of one a month. The nature of the process was not stated ; 
but we are told thei'e are 250,000 F'ederal troops now under 
arms, prepared to try a new one. 

Combined with the feeling of animosity to the rebels, there 
is, I perceive, a good deal of ill-feeling towards Great Britain. 
Tlie Southern papers are so angry with us for the Order in 
Council closing British ports against privateers and their 
prizes, that they advise Mr. Rust and Mr. Yancey to leave 
Europe. We are in evil case between North and South. I 
met a reverend doctor, who is most bitter in his expressions 
towards us ; and I dare say. Bishop and General Leonidas 
Polk, down South, would not be much better disposed. The 
clergy are active on both sides ; and their flocks approve of 



372 MY DIARY NORTH AND SQUTH. 

their holy violence. One journal tells, with much gusto, of a 
blasphemous chaplain, a remarkably good rifle shot, who went 
into one of the skirmishes lately, and killed a number of reb- 
els — the joke being, in fact, that each time he fired and 
brought down his man, he exclaimed, piously, '' May Heaven 
have mercy on your soul ! " One Father Mooney, who per- 
formed the novel act, for a clergyman, of " christening " a big 
gun at Washington the other day, wound up the speech he 
made on the occasion, by declaring " the echo of its voice 
would be sweet music, inviting the children of Columbia to 
share the comforts of his father's home." Can impiety and 
folly and bad taste go further ? 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

Departure for Washington — A " servant " — The American Press 
on the War —Military aspect of tlie States — Thiladclphia — 
Baltimore — Washington — Lord Lyons — Mr. S\nnner — Irrita- 
tion against Great Britain — " Independence " day — Meeting of 
Congress — General state of affairs. 

July M. — Up early, breakfasted at five, A. M., and left my 
hospitable host's roof, on ray way to Washington. The ferry- 
boat, which is a long way off, starts for the train at seven 
o'clock ; and so bad are the roads, I nearly missed it. On 
hurrying to secure ray place in the train, I said to one of the 
railway officers : " If you see a colored man in a cloth cap 
and dark coat with metal buttons, will you be good enough, sir, 
to tell him I'm in this carriage." " Why so, sir ? " " He is 
my servant." " Servant," he repeated ; " your servant ! I 
presume you're a Britisher ; and if he's your servant, I think 
you may as well let him find you." And so he walked away, 
delighted with his cleverness, his civility, and his rebuke of 
an aristocrat. 

Nearly four months since I went by this road to Washing- 
ton. The change which has since occurred is beyond belief. 
Men were then speaking of place under Government, of 
comproraises between North and South, and of peace ; now 
they only talk of war and battle. Ever since I caihe out of 
the South, and could see the newspapers, I have been struck 
by the easiness of the American people, by their excessive 
credulity. Whether they wish it or not, they are certainly 
deceived. Not a day has passed without the announcement 
that the Federal troops were moving, and that " a great battle 
was expected "' by somebody unknown, at some place or other. 

I could not help observing tiie arrogant tone with which 
■writers of stupendous ignorance on military matters write of 
the operations which they think the Generals should undertake. 
They demand that an army, which has neither adequate trans- 
port, artillery, nor cavalry, shall be pushed forward to Richmond 



374 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

to crush out Secession, and at the same time then' cohimns 
teem with accounts from tlie army, wliicli prove that it is not 
only ill-disciplined, but that it is ill-provided. A general outcry 
has been raised against the war department and the contractors, 
and it is openly stated that ]Mr. Cameron, the Secretary, has 
not clean hands. One joui'ual denounces the "swindling and 
plunder" which prevail under his eyes. A minister who is 
disposed to be corrupt can be so with facility under tlie system 
of the United States, becvuise he has absolute control over the 
contracts, which are rising to an enormous magnitude, as the 
war pre[)arations assume more formidable dimensions. The 
greater part of the militai-y stores of the States are in the South 
— arras, ordnance, clothing, ammunition, ships, machinery, and 
all kinds of materiel must be piepared in a hurry. 

The condition in which the States present themselves, par- 
ticularly at sea, is a curious commentary on the offensive and 
warlike tone of their statesmen in their dealings with the first 
maritime power of the world. They cannot blockade a single 
port effectually. The Confedei-ate steamer Sumter has escaped 
to sea from New Orleans, and ships run in and out of Charleston 
almost as they please. Coming so recently from the South, I 
can see the great difference which exists between the two 
races, as they may be called, exem[)liHed in the men I have 
seen, and those who are in the train going towards Washington. 
These volunteers have none of the swash-buckler bravado, 
gallant-swaggering air of the Southern men. They are staid, 
quiet men, and the Pennsylvanians, who are on their way to 
join their regiment in Baltimore, are very inferior in size and 
strength to the Teunesseaus and Carolinians. 

The train is fidl of men in uniform. When I last went over 
the line, I do not believe there was a sign of soldiering, beyond 
perhaps the ''conductor," wiio is always decribed in the papers 
as being "gentlemanly," wore his badge. And, a propos of 
badges, I see that civilians have taken to wearing shields of 
metal on their coats, enamelled with the stars and stripes, and 
tluit men who are not in the army try to make it seem they 
are soldiers by affecting military caps and cloaks. 

The country between Washington and Philadelphia is 
destitute of natural beauties, but it affords abiuulant evidence 
that it is inhabited by a prosperous, cointbrtable. middle-class 
community. From every village church and from many houses, 
the Union tlag was displayed. Four months ago not one was 
to be seen. \Vhen we were crossing in the steam ferry-boat 



OCCUPATION OF MARYLAND. 375 

at Philadelphia I saw some volunteers looking up and smiling 
at a hatchet which was over the ciibin door, and it was not till 
I saw it liad the words "States' Rights Fire Axe" painted 
along the handle I could account tor the attraction. It woulil 
fare ill with any vessel in Southern waters which displayed au 
axe to the citizens iuscribed with " Dawn with States' Rights " 
on it. There is certainly less vehemence and bitterness among 
the Northernei'S ; but it might be erroneous to suppose there 
was less determination. 

Below Philadelphia, from Havre-de-Grace all the way to 
Baltimore, and thence on to Washington, the stations on the 
•rail were gu;irded by soldiers, as though an enemy were ex- 
pected to destroy the bridges and to tear up the i"ails. Wooden 
bridges and causeways, carried over piles and embankments, 
are necessary, in consequence of the nature of the country ; 
and at each of these a small camp was formed for the soldiers 
who have to guard the approaches. Sentinels are [)Osted, [)ick- 
ets thrown out, and in the open field by the wayside troops are 
to be seen moving, as though a battle was close at hand. In 
one word, we are in the State of Maryland. By these means 
alone are communications maintained between the North and 
the capital. As we approach Baltimore the number of sen- 
tinels and camps increase, and earthworks have been thrown 
up on the high grounds commanding the city. The display of 
Federal flags from the public buildings and some shipping ia 
the river was so limited as to contrast strongly with those sym- 
bols of Union sentiments in the Northern cities. 

Since I last passed through this city the streets have been 
a scene of bloodshed. The conductor of the car on which we 
travelled from one terminus to the other, along the street rail- 
way, pointed out the marks of the bullets on the walls and in 
the window frames. '• That's the way to deal with the Plug 
Uglies," exclaimed he; a name given popularly to the lower 
classes called Rowdies in New York. " Yes," said a fellow- 
passenger quietly to me, " the>e are the sentiments which are 
now uttered in the country which we call the land of freedom, 
and men like that desire nothing better than brute force. There 
is no city in Europe — Venice, Warsaw, or Rome — subject 
to such tyranny as Baltimore at this moment. In this Pratt 
Street there have been murders a-; foul as ever soldiery com- 
mitted in the streets of Paris." Here was evidently the judi- 
cial blindness of a States' Rights fanatic, who considers the 
despatch of Federal soldiers through the State of Maryland 



376 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

without the permission of the authorities an outrage so flagrant 
as to justify the people in shooting them down, whilst the sol- 
diers become murderers if the}' resist. At the corners of the 
streets strong guards of soldiers were posted, and patrols moved 
up and down the thoroughfares. The inhabitants looked sullen 
and sad. A small war is waged by the police recently ap- 
j)ointed by the Federal authorities against the women, who 
exhibit mueli ingenuity in expressing their animosity to the 
stars and stripes — dressing the children, and even dolls, in the 
Confederate colors, and wearing the same in ribbons and bows. 
The negro population alone seemed just the same as before. 

The Secession newspapers of Baltimore have been sup- 
pressed, but the editors contrive nevertheless to show their 
sympathies in the selection of their extracts. In to-day's pa- 
per there is an account of a skirmish in the West, given by 
one of the Confederates who took part in it, in which it is 
stated that the officer commanding the party " scalped " twenty- 
three Federals. For the first time since 1 left the South I see 
those advertisements headed by the figure of a negro running 
with a bundle, and containing descriptions of the fugitive, and 
the reward ottered for imprisoning him or her, so that the owner 
may receive his propei-ty. Among tlie insignia enumerated 
are scars on the back and over the loins. The whip is not 
only used by the masters and drivers, but by the police ; and 
in every report of petty police cases sentences of so many 
lashes, and severe floggings of women of color are recorded. 

It is about forty miles from Baltimore to Washington, and 
at every quarter of a mile for the whole distance a picket of 
soldiers guarded the rails. Camps a{)peared on both sides, 
larger and more closely packed together; and the rays of the 
setting sun fell on countless lines of tents as we ap|)roached 
the unfinished dome of the Capitol. On the Virginian side 
of the river, columns of smoke rising from the forest marked 
the site of Federal encampments across the stream. The fields 
around Washington resounded with the words of command 
and tramp of men, and tla^hed with wheeling arms. Parks 
of artillery studded the waste ground, and long trains of white- 
covert'd wagons filled up the open spaces in tlie suburbs of 
Washington. 

To me all this was a wonderful sight. As I drove up Penn- 
sylvania Avenue I could scarce credit that the busy thorough- 
fare — all red, white, and blue with flags, filled with dust from 
galloping chargers and commissariat carts ; the side-walks 



DANGEROUS DESPATCHES. 377 

thronged with people, of \yhom a large proportion carried 
sword or bayonet ; shops full of life and aetivity — was 
the same as (hat tliroiigli wliieh I liad driven the tirst morning 
of my arrival. AVasliington now, indeed, is the capital of the 
United States ; but it is no longer the scene of beneficent legis- 
lation and of peaceful government. It is the representative 
of armed force engaged in war — menaced whilst in the very 
act of raising its arm by the enemy it seeks to strike. 

To avoid the tumult of Willard's, I requested a I'riend to 
hire apartments, and drove to a house in Pennsylvania Avenue, 
close to the War Department, where he had succeeded in en- 
gaging a sitting-room about twelve feet scpiare, and a bed- 
room to corres})ond, in a very small mansion, next door to a 
spirit merchant's. At the Legation I saw Lord Lyons, and 
gave him a brief account of wliat I had seen in the South. I 
was sorry to ol)serve he looked rather careworn and j)ale. 

The relations of the United States Government with Great 
Britain have probably been considerably affected by Mr. Sew- 
ard's failure in his prophecies. As the Southern Confederacy 
develo[)s its power, the Foreign Secretary assumes higher 
ground, and becomes more exacting, and defiant. In these 
hot summer days, Lord Lyons and the members of the Lega- 
tion dine early, and enjoy the cool of the evening in the gar- 
den ; so after a while I took my leave, and proceeded to Gau- 
tier's. On my way I met Mr. Sumner, who asked me for 
Southcn-n news very anxiously, and in the course of conversa- 
tion with him I was confirmed in my impressions that the 
feeling between the two countries was not as friendly as could 
be desired. Lord Lyons had better means of knowing what 
is going on in the South, by communications from the British 
Consuls ; but even he seemed unaware of facts which had 
occurred whilst I was there, and Mr. Sunnier appeared to be 
as ignorant of the whole condition of things below Mason and 
Dixon's line as he was of the politics of Timbuetoo. 

The importance of maintaining a friendly feeling with Eng- 
land appeared to me very strongly im[)ressed on the Senator's 
mind. Mr. Seward has been fretful, irritable, and acrimonious; 
and it is not too much to suppt)se Mr. Sumner has been useful 
in allaying irritation. A certain despatch was written last 
June, which amounted to little less than a declaration of war 
against Great Britain. Most fortunately the President was 
induced to exercise hi>< power. The despatch was modified, 
though not without opposition, and was forwarded to the Eng- 



378 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

lish Minister with its teeth drawn. Lord Lyons, who is one 
of the suavest and quietest of diplomatists, has found it difficuh, 
I fear, to maintain personal relations with Mr. Seward at 
times. , Two despatches have been prepared for Lord John 
Russell, which could have had no result but to lead to a breach 
of the peace, had not some friendly interpositor succeeded in 
avei'ting the wrath of the Foreign Minister. 

Mr. Sumner is more sanguine of immediate success than I 
am, from the military operations which are to commence when 
General Scott considers the army fit to take the field. A 
Gautier's I met a number of officers, who expressed a great 
diversity of views in reference to those operations. General 
McDowell is popular with them, but they admit the great defi- 
ciencies of the subaltern and company officers. General 
Scott is too infirm to take the field, and the burdens of adminis- 
tration press the veteran to the earth. 

July 4th. — " Lidependence Day." Fortunate to escape this 
great national festival in the large cities of the Union where it 
is celebrated with many days before and after of surplus re- 
joicing, by fireworks and an incessant fusillade in the streets, 
I was, nevertheless, subjected to the small ebullition of the 
Washington juveniles, to bell-ringing and discharges of cannon 
and musketry. On this day Congress meets. Never before 
has any legislative body assembled under circumstances so 
grave. By their action they will decide wheth(^r the Union 
can ever be restored, and will determine whether the States 
of the North are to commence an invasion for the purpose of 
subjecting by force of arms, and depriving of their freedom, the 
States of the South. 

Congress met to-day merely for the purpose of forming itselt 
into a regular body, and there was no debate or business of 
public importance introduced. Mr. Wilson gave me to un 
derstand, however, that some military movements of the ut- 
most importance might be expected in a few days, and that 
General McDowell would positively attack the rebels in front 
of Washington. The Confederates occupy the whole of 
Northern Virginia, commencing from the peninsula above 
Fortress Monroe on the riglit or east, and extending along the 
Potomac, to the extreme verge of the State, by the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railway. This immense line, however, is broken by 
great intervals, and the army with which McDowell will have 
to deal may be considered as detached, covering the approach- 
es to Richmond, whilst its left flank is protected by a coi'ps of 



THE MILITARY SITUATION. 379 

observation, stationed near Winchester, under General Jack- 
son. A Federal corps is being prepared to watch the corps 
and engage it, whilst McDowell advances on the main body. 
To the right of this again, or further west, another body of" 
Federals, under General McCIellan, is operating in the valleys 
of the Slienandoah and in Western Virginia ; but I did not 
hear of any of these things from Mr. Wilson, who was, I am 
sure, in perfect ignorance of the plans, in a military sense, of 
the General. I sat at Mr. Sumner's desk, and wrote the final 
paragraphs of a letter describing my impressions of the South 
in a place but little disposed to give a favorable color to them. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Interview with Mr. Seward — My pass))ort — Mr. Seward's views as 
to tlie war — Illuiuiiiation at Wasliin^fton — My "servant" ab- 
sents liiinseif — New York journalism — 'I'lie (Japitol — Interior 
of ( !on};i'('ss — 'JMie l*r(;si(lciit',s Mcssafrt; — Speeciies in Conf^ress 

— Loi-ii ivyons — (len(u'al McDowell — Low standard in tlic army 

— Accident to the "Stars and Stripes" — A street row — Mr. 
IJigelow — Mr. N. ].'. Willis. 

WiiioN lli(! S(Mi;ife li;ul ndjoiinied, I drove to llic Stufe 
De,|)!irtin(wil and saw Mr. Seward, wlio looked innch more worn 
and ha<i;gard tliaii when I saw him hist, three months ago. He 
congratnhitcd me on my safe return from tlie Sonth in time to 
witness some stirring events. " W(;ll, Mr. Secretary, I am 
quite snre that, if all the South arc; of the sanui mind as tho,se 
I met in my travels, there will he many battles before they 
submit to the Ftnleral Governmenl." 

" It is not submission to the Govermnent we want ; it is to 
as.^ent to the priiu-iples of the Constitution. When you left 
Wasliington we had a lew hinidrcd regulars and some hastily- 
hn'ied militia to defend the national capital, and a battery and 
a half of artilliiry mider the eoimnand of :i traitor. The 
Navy Yard was in the hands of a disloyal ollicer. We were 
surroundcid by treason. Now we are supiiorted by the loyal 
States whic^h have come forward in defence of the best Gov- 
ernmiiiit on the face of the earth, and the imfortunate and 
desperate men who Inive commenced this struggle will have to 
yield or ex[)(;rience the punishment due to their crimes." 

" But, Mr. Seward, has not this great exhibition of strength 
been attended by some circumstances calculated to inspire ap- 
prehension that liberty in the Free Slates may be impaired ; 
for instance, I hear that I must procure a passport in order to 
travel through the Slates and go into the cam[)S in front of 
Washinglon." 

"Yes, sir; you must send your j)assport here from Lord 
Lyons, with his signature. It will be no good till I have 
signed it, and then it must be sent to General Scott, as Com- 



PASSPORTS. 381 

rnander-in-Cliiefof (lie United States army, who will subscrilx; 
it, after wliicli it will he availahh; for all Ic^fitimate {)ui'|)oses. 
You are not in any way ini[)aire(l in your lihi^rty l)y the 
{) recess." 

"Neither is, one may say, the man who is under surveil- 
lance of tlie police in desj)otic eountnes of Euro|)e ; he has 
only to submit to a c(;rlain formality, and he is all i-i^ht ; in 
fact, it is said by some p(!0|)l(!, that the protection afforded by 
a passport is worth all the trouble conn(;eted wilh having it in 
ordei'." 

Mr. Sewaril seemed to think it was (piite likidy. Tlien; 
were corresponding measures taken in the Southern .States by 
the reliels, and it was necessary to have some control over 
traitors and disloyal persons. " In this contest," said he, " the 
Government will not shrink from using all the means which 
they consider necessary to restor<; the Union." It was not my 
place to remark that such doctj-ines were exactly id(;ntical 
with all that despotic governments in Europe have advanced 
as the ground of action in cases of revolt, or with a view to 
the maintenance of their strong Governmc^nts. " The Execu- 
tive," said he, " has decdared in the inaugiu'al that the I'ights 
of the Federal Government shall be fully vindicated. We 
are dealing with an insuri-ection within our own country, of our 
own p(!ople, and the (jrovernmtMit of Great IJritain have 
thought lit to recognize tiiat insurrection before we were able 
to bring the strength of tlu; Union to bear against it, by con- 
ceding to it the status of belligei-ent. Although we might 
justly complain of such an unfriendly a(;t in a manner that 
might injure the friendly rfdations b(;lween the two countries, 
we do not desire to give any excuse tor foreign int(M-ference ; 
although we do not hesitate, in case of necessity, to resist it to 
the uttermost, we liave less to fear fiom a foreign war than 
any country in the world. If any European Power provokes 
a war, we shall not shrink frf)m it. A contest between Great 
Britain and the United Stales would wrap the world in fii-e, 
and at the end it would not be the United Slates which would 
have to lament the results of the conflict." 

I could not but admire th<; confiilence — may I say the cool- 
ness ? — of the statesman who sat in his modest little room 
within the sound of the evening's guns, in a capital menaced 
by their forces who s[)()ke so fearlessly of war with a I'owcr 
which could have blotted out th(; paper blockade of the South- 
ern torts and coast in a few hours, and, in conjunction with the 



382 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Southern armies, have repeated the occupation and destruction 
of the capital. 

Tli(! President sent for Mr. Seward whilst I was in the 
State Department, and I walked up Pennsylvania Avenue to 
my l()(l;fin,L!,s, throutrli a crowd of men in uniform who were 
celebrating Independence Day in their own fashion — some 
by the large internal use of fire-water, others by an externa] 
display of lire-works. 

Directly opposite my lodgings are the head-quarters of Gen- 
eral Maiisli(!ld, commanding the district, which are marked by 
a guard at the door and a couple of six-poinider guns pointing 
down the street. I called upon the Gencu-al, but he was busy 
examining certain inhabitants of Alexandria and of Washington 
itself, who had been brought bel()re him on the charge of being 
Secessionists, and I left my card, and proceeded to General 
Scott's head-quarters, which I found packed with officers. 
The Genenil received me in a small room, and expressed his 
gratification at my return, but I saw he was so busy with re- 
ports, des])atches, and maps, that I did not trespass on his 
time. I dined with Lord Lyons, and afterwards went with 
some members of the Legation to visit the camps, situated in 
the public square. 

All the i)opulation of Washington had turned out in their 
best to listen to the military bands, the music of which was 
rendered nearly inaudible by the constant ilischarge of fire- 
works. The camp of the 12th New York presented a very 
pretty and animated scene. The men liberated from duty 
were (nijoying themselves out and inside their tents, and the 
sutlers' booths were driving a roaritig trade. I was intro- 
duced to Colonel liutterfield, commanding the regiment, who 
was a merchant of New York ; but notwithstanding the train- 
ing of the counting-house, he looked very much like a soldier, 
and had got his regiment vuvy fairly in hand. In compliance 
with a doire of Professor Henry, the Colonel had prepared a 
number of statistical tables in which the nationality, height, 
weight, breadth of chest, age, and other particulars respecting 
the men under his command were entered. I looked over the 
book, and as fiir as 1 could judge, but two out of twelve of 
the soldiers were native-born Americans, the rest being Irish, 
German, English, and Kuropean-born generally. According 
to the commanding ofiicer they were in the highest state of 
discipline and obedience. He had given th(!m leave to go out 
as they pleased for the day, but at tattoo oidy fourteen men 



WANTED A HORSE. 383 

out of one thoupaml were absent, and some of those had been 
accounted tor by n^ports that they were ineapabhi ot" locoino- 
ti(>n owinj; to the hospitably of tlie citiz(!ns. 

When I returned to my h)df^in^s, tlie colored boy whom I 
had hired at Niajjara was absent, and I was told he had not 
come in since the night before. " These fnic colored boys," 
said my landlord, "are a bad set; now they are worse than 
ever ; the ollicers of the army are takinir th(!m all away from 
us ; it's just the life they like; they get little work, have good 
pay; but what they like most is robbing and plundering the 
farmers' houses over in Virginia; what with Germans, Irish, 
and free niggers. Lord helj) the poor Virginians, I say ; but 
they'll give them a turn yet." 

The sounds in Washington to-night might have led one to 
believe the city was carried by storm. Constant explosion of 
fire-iU'ms, fireworks, shouting, and cries in the streets, which 
combined, with the heat and the abominable odors of the un- 
tli'auicd houses ami mosquitoes, to drive sleep far away. 

Jid]) Hlh. — As the young gentleman of color, to whom I 
had given egregious ransom as well as an advanf^e of wages, 
did not ap[)ear tliis morning, I was, after an abortive attempt 
to boil water for coft'ee and to get a piece of toast, comp(!lh;d 
to go in next door, and avail myself of lh(! hospitality of Ca|)- 
tain Cecil Johnson, who was installed in th(^ dniwing-room of 
Madame Jost. In the forenoon, Mr. John l>igelow, whose 
acquaintance I made, much to my gratification in time gone 
by, on the margin of the Lake of Thun, found me out, and 
proffered his sei'vices ; which, as the whilom editor of the 
" Evening Post " and as a leading Republican, he was in a posi- 
tion to render vahuU)le and most effective ; but he could not 
make a Bucephalus to order, and I have been running through 
the stables of Wasliington in vain, ho[)ing to find something 
up to my weight — such flankless, screwy, shoulderless, cat- 
like creatures were never seen — four of them would scarcfdy 
furnish ribs and legs enough to carry a man, but the owners 
thought thiit each of them was fit for Baron Rothschild ; and 
then there was saddlery and equipments of all soi"ts to be got, 
which the influx of oflieers and the badness and dcarness of 
the material |)ut (piite beyond one's reach. Mr. Big(dow was 
of opinion that the army would move at once ; " But," said I, 
"where is tlu; tra!!S[)ort — where the cavalry and ginis?" 
" (Jli," ie[)lird he, "I suppose we have got evtirything that is 
requiicd. I know nothing of these things, but I am told cav 



384 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

alrj are no use in the wooded country towards Richmond." 
I have not yet been able to go through the camps, but I doubt 
very much wliether the material or commissariat of the grand 
army of the North is at all adequate to a campaign. 

The presumption and ignorance of the New York journals 
would be ridiculous were they not so mischievous. They 
describe " this horde of battalion companies — unofficered, 
clad in all kinds of different uniform, diversely equipped, per- 
fectly ignorant of the principles of military obedience and 
concerted action," — for so I hear it described by United States 
officers themselves — as being " the greatest army the world 
ever saw ; perfect in officers and discipline ; unsurpassed in 
devotion and courage; furnished with every requisite; and 
destined on its first march to sweep into Richmond, and to 
obliterate from the Potomac to New Orleans every trace of 
rebellion." 

The Congress met to-day to hear the Preside'nt's Message 
read. Somehow oi* other there is not such anxiety and eager- 
ness to hear what Mr. Lincoln has to say as one could expect 
on such a momentous occasion. It would seem as if the 
foi-thcoming appeal to arras had overshadowed every other 
sentiment in the minds of the people. They are waiting for 
deeds, and care not for words. The confidence of the New 
York ])apers, and of the citizens, soldiers, and public speakers, 
contrast with the dubious and gloomy views of the military 
men ; but of this Message itself there are some incidents 
independent of the occasion to render it curious, if not inter- 
esting. The President has, it is said, written much of it in his 
own fashion, which has been revised and altered by his Min- 
isters; but he has written it again and repeated himself, and 
after many struggles a good deal of pure Lincolnism goes 
down to Congress. 

At a little after half-past eleven T went down to the Capitol. 
Pennsylvania Avenue was thronged as before, but on ap- 
proaching Capitol Hill, the crowd rather thinned away, as 
though they shunned, or had no curiosity to hear, the Presi- 
dent's Message. One would have thought that, where every 
one who could get in was at liberty to attend the galleries in both 
Houses, there would have been an immense pressure from the 
inhabitants and strangers in the city, as well as from the 
citizen soldiers, of wiiicli such multitudes were in the street; 
but when I looked up from the fioor of the Senate, I was 
astonished to see that the galleries were not more than three 



THE CAPITOL. 335 

abuts on a la^rshterri 1^''.,'^'''"^ ''^" ^^"o f^ 
avenues lead to the mn v en -f'' ''f' "'^"^^^ '"^^^' ^^^^ 
colonnades; the ftc™ wh.VI? '' ""^^ '^'' porticoes and 

looks out on heap, of bH^nd ''' ^^^^^ ^'='^- 

of marble blocks lyin^Tlf F-Ti '"' '^^"^' ''^"^ ^ "''"^^fe 

the ground, ^^^i^j^^i;::^:;',:^:::;^^ ^'f ''r'^-''" 

planners of the citv wn« f^ ^,^ *''^ ^°""f'ers and 

The cleverne of T;-t"h. necul.r"'^-"^, '^^. ^^*^^^'>' ^^^••-^- 
execution of the or^^ aMrat^^.H^ T' '^r^"^^^^ ^'^^ 
inain avenues of the citv Tom /hP Z'' '^^'^"'^ ''^" t'^« 
intermediate streets bein7fn 1 ^'T'^''^ ''' ^ ^^"f^-^' ^he 
increasing interva from t^r V 7^>«^ drawn at regularly- 

resembles it in anothe re^l^ f/^^f' f ^' ""finished. It 
and again, it is inconi'uou'^nlt; p.?f 'xlf "' "" '''''''''■' 
dark that artificial li-du is often t^i . passages are so 
bis way. The offic^ IT? ^ ""^ ^^ ^"''^^^^ «"^ ^o find 

better tiu^ntlfe elf. ^erJ of the sT"r' \'l T"'"^^^ -- 

resentatives. All he Encaustic ^^^ 7'^ ^'^f .^""'^^ "^ ^«P- 

stone staircases 4ffer fmm "'^- ''" '^''"^^ "^'-^''ble and 

liberal display of .pttooT '. ''' J"'""' '^^""^h there is a 

messengers! dooleeners " nd ""7^ '"''""'•• ^be official 

badge or dress No C' P°'^''' ^'"^^ "« distinctive 

of Parliamen ■ no soklieT'" T "" ^•"^^' "^ '" «"^ houses 

in the precinc ^ the crowJ' ^'^"?''^""T'' "^ ««'-g«"S-de-ville 

pleases^and slows he Ztr"" ''• ^^'"' ''^" P''^'^^^''^.?'^^^ «« ''t 
ought not to ntrude "^^f .P^'^P^^^J' "ever going where it 

women; the reporters ^re '" "" T''"" ^^""^^'^ ^^^* '-^P^''^ ^«>- 

gallery, above trS>eaW.'''^'r'^/ P'^^^^^ '" «" '-^^P'e 

Their galleiy fee L t'he v^ f'"""' "f ^'pJ^'^-'itie circle have 

downfn tbet fvv vVTr "''/'"V^ '^''^ "'''^ placed so low 
cnnh^L^; ■ d*^P''«S'^ed chamber, that everv worri 



386 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

The seats of the members are disposed in a manner some- 
what like those in the French Chambers. Instead of being 
in parallel rows to the walls, and at right angles to the Chair- 
man's seat, the separate chairs and desks of the senators are 
arranged in semicircular rows. The space between the walls 
and the outer semicircle is called the floor of the house, and it 
is a high compliment to a stranger to introduce iiim within 
this privileged place. There are leather-cushioned seats and 
lounges put for the accommodation of those who may be in- 
troduced by senators, or to whom, as distinguished members 
of congress in former days, the permission is given to take 
their seats. Senators Sumner and Wilson introduced me to a 
chair, and made me acquainted with a number of senators 
before the business of the day began. 

Mr. Sumner, as the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Tvclations, is supposed to be viewed with some jealousy by 
Mr. Seward, on account of the disposition attributed to him to 
interfere in diplomatic questions ; but if he does so, we shall 
have no reason to complain, as the Senator is most desirous 
of keeping the peace between the two countries, and of mol- 
lifying any little acerbities and irritations which may at 
present exist between them. -Senator Wilson is a man who 
has risen from what would be considered in any country but 
a republic the lowest ranks of the people. He apprenticed 
himself to a poor shoemaker when he was twenty-two years 
of age, and when he was twenty-four years old he began to 
go to school, 'and devoted all his earnings to the improvement 
of education. He got on by degrees, till he set up as a master 
shoemaker and manufacturer, became a " mnjor-general " of 
State militia ; finally was made Senator of the Ignited States, 
and is now " Chairman of the Committee of the Senate on 
Military Affairs." He is a bluff man, of about fifty years of 
age, with a peculiar eye and complexion, and seems iionest and 
vigorous. But is he not going ultra crepidain in such a post? 
At present he is much perplexed by the drunkenness whicii 
prevails among the trooj)s, or rather by the desire of the men 
for spirits, as he has a New England mania on that point. One 
of the most remarkable-looking men in the House is Mr. Sum- 
ner. Mr. Breckinridge and he would probably be the first 
persons to excite the curiosity of a stranger, so far as to in- 
duce him to ask for tiieir names. Save in height — and both 
are a good deal over six feet — there is no resemblance be- 
tween the champion of States' Rights and the orator of the 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 387 

BUick Republicans. The massive head, the great chin and 
jaw, and the penetrating eyes of Mr. Breckinridge convey 
the idea of a man of immense detei'mination, courage, and 
sagacity. Mr. Sumner's features are indicative of a pliilosoph- 
ical and poetical turn of thought, and one might easily conceive 
tliat he would be a great advocate, but an indifferent leader 
of a party. 

It was a hot day ; but there was no tixcuse for the slop- 
coats and light-colored clothing and felt wide-awakes worn by 
so many senators in such a place. They gave the meeting 
the aspect of a gathering of bakers or millers ; nor did the 
constant use of the spittoons beside their desks, their reading 
of newspapers and writing letters during the dispatch of busi- 
ness, or the hurrying to and fro of the j)ages of the Floase 
between the seats, do any thing but derogate from the dignity 
of the assemblage, and, according to European notions, violate 
the respect due to a Senate Ciiamber. The pages alluded to 
are smart boys, from twelve to fifteen years of age, who stand 
below the President's table, and are employed to go on er- 
rands and carry otiicial messages by the members. They 
wear no particular uniform, and are dressed as the taste or 
means of their parents dictate. 

The House of Representatives exaggerates all the peculiar- 
ities I have observed in the Senate, but the debates are not 
regarded with so much interest as those of the Upper House; ; 
indeed, they are of far less importance. Strong-minded states- 
men and officers — Presidents or Ministers — do not care 
much for the House of Re[>resentatives, so long as they are 
sure of the Senate ; and, for the matter of that, a President 
like Jackson does not care much for Senate and House to- 
gether. Tiicre are privileges attached to a seat in either 
branch of the Legislature, independent of the great fact that 
they receive mileage and are paid for their services, which 
may add some incentive to ambition. Thus the members can 
order whole tons of stationery for their use, not otdy when 
they are in session, but during the recess. Their frank covers 
parcels by mail, and it is said that Senators without a con- 
science have sent sewing-machines to their wives and pianos 
to their daughters as little parcels by post. I had almost for- 
gotten that much tlie same abuses were in vogue in England 
some century ago. 

The galleries were by no means full, and in that reserved 
for the diplomatic body the most notable person was M. Mer- 



388 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

cier, the Minister of France, who, fixing his intelligent and 
eager face between both hands, watched with keen scrutiny 
the attitude and conduct of the Senate. None of the members 
of the English Legation were present. After the lapse of an 
houi-, Mr. Hay, the President's Secretary, made his apf)ear- 
ance on the floor, and sent in the Message to the Clerk of the 
Senate, Mr. Forney, who proceeded to read it to the House. 
It was listened to in silence, scarcely broken except when 
some senator murmured " Good, that is so ; " but in fact the 
general purport of it was already known to the supporters of 
the Ministry, and not a sound came from the galleries. Soon 
after Mr. Forney had finished, the galleries were cleared, and 
I returned up Pennsylvania Avenue, in which the crowds of 
soldiers around bar-rooms, oyster-shops, and restaurants, the 
groups of men in oflicers' uniform, and the clattering of dis- 
orderly mounted cavaliers in the dust, increased my apprehen- 
sion that discipline was very little regarded, and that the army 
over the Potomac had not a very strong hand to keep it with- 
in bounds. 

As I was walking over with Capt. Johnson to dine with 
Lord Lyons, I met General Scott leaving his office and walk- 
ing with great difficulty between two aides-de-camp. He was 
dressed in a blue frock with gold lace shoulder straps, fastened 
round the waist by a yellow sash, and with large yellow lapels 
turned back over the chest in the old style, and moved with 
great difficulty along the pavement. " You see I am trying 
to hobble along, but it is hard for me to overcome my many 
infirmities. I regret I could not have the pleasure of granting 
you an interview to-day, but I shall cause it to be intimated to 
you when I may have the pleasure of seeing you ; meantime 
I shall provide you with a pass and the necessary introductions 
to afford you all facilities with the army." 

After dinner I made a round of visits, and heard the diplo- 
matists speaking of the Message ; few, if any of them, in its 
favor. With tlie exception perhaps of Baron Gerolt, the 
Prussian Minister, there is not one member of the Legations 
who justifies the attempt of the Northern States to assert the 
supremacy of the Federal Government by the force of arms. 
Lord Lyons, indeed, in maintaining a judicious reticence, when- 
ever he does speak gives utterance to sentiments becoming 
the representative of Great Britain at the court of a friendly 
Power, and the Minister of a people who have been protago- 
nists to slavery for many a long year. 



GENERAL M'DOWELL. 389 

July Qth. — I broakfasted with Mr. Bigelow this morning, 
to meet General McDowell, who commands the army of the 
Potomac, now so soon to move. lie came in without an aide- 
d(;-cam]i, and on foot, from his quarters in the city. lie is a 
man about forty years of ago, square and powerfully built, but 
with, rather a stout and clumsy figure and limbs, a good head 
covered with close-cut thick ilark hair, small ligiit-blue eyes, 
short nose, large cheeks and jaw, ridieved by an iron-gray tuft 
somewhat of tlie French ty|)e, and affecting in dress the style 
of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and agree- 
able, and Ik; did not hesitate to speak with great openness of 
the dilhculties he had to contend with, and the im[)erfection of 
all the arrangements of the army. 

As an officer of the regular army he has a thorough con- 
t(;mpt for what he calls " political gen(;rals " — the men who 
use their influence with President and Congress to obtain 
military rank, which in time of war places them before the 
public in the front of events, and gives them an appearance 
of leading in the greatest of all political movements. Nor is 
General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in 
Mexico, and has from what he saw there formed rather an un- 
favorable opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is in- 
clined, however, to hold the Soutliern troops in too little re- 
spect ; and he told me that the volunteers from the Slave States, 
who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did not 
make good their words, and that they suffen^d especially from 
sickness and disease, in consequence of tlusir disorderly habits 
and dissipation. His regard for old associations was evinced 
in many questions he asked me about Beauregard, with whom 
he had been a student at West Point, where the Confederate 
commander vras noted for his studious and reserved habits, and 
his excellence in feats of strength and atldetic exercises. 

As. proof of the low standard established in his army, he 
mentioned that some ollicers of considei-able rank were more 
than suspected of selling rations, and of illicit connections 
with sutlers for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The Gen 
eral walked back with me as far as my lodgings, and I observ- 
ed that not one of the many soldiers he passed in the streets 
saluted him, though his rank was indicated by his velvet collar 
and cuffs, and a gold star on tiie shoulder strap. 

Having written some letters, I walkc^d out with Captain 
Johnson and one of the attaches of the British Legation, to 
the lawn at the back of the White House, and listened to the 



390 IVrY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

excellent band of the United States Marines, playing on a 
kind of dais under the large flag recently hoisted by the Pres- 
ident himself, in the garden. Tlie occasion was marked by 
rather an ominous event. As the President pulled the hal- 
yards and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the 
bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes 
were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag, 
half detached from the staff. 

I dined at Captain Johnson's lodgings next door to mine. 
Beneath us was a wine and spirit store, and crowds of officers 
and men flocked indiscriminately to make their purchases, with 
a good deal of tumult, which increased as the night came on. 
Later still, there was a great disturbance in the city. A body 
of New York Zouaves wrecked some houses of bad repute, 
in one of which a private of the regiment was murdered early 
this morning. The cavalry patrols were called out and 
charged the rioters, who were dispersed with difficulty after 
resistance in which men on both sides were wounded. There 
is no police, no provost guard. Soldiers wander about the 
streets, and beg in the fashion of the mendicant in " Gil Bias " 
for money to get whiskey. My colored gentleman has been 
led away by the Saturnalia and has taken to gambling in the; 
camps, which are surrounded by hordes of rascally followers 
and sutlers' servants, and I find myself on the eve of a cam- 
paign, without servant, horse, equipment, or means of trans- 
port. 

Juhj 1th. — Mr. Bigelow invited me to breakfast, to meet 
Mr. Senator King, Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Thurlow Weed, a Sen- 
ator from Missouri, a West Point professor, and others. It was 
indicative of the serious difficulties which embarrass the ac- 
tion of the Government to hear Mr. Wilson, the Chairman 
of the Military Committee of the Senate, inveigh against the 
officers of the regular army, and attack West Point itself. 
Whilst the New York papers were lauding General Scott 
and his plans to the skies, the Washington politicians were 
speaking of him as obstructive, obstinate, and prejudiced — 
unfit for the times and the occasion. 

General Scott refused to accept cavalry and artillery at 
the beginning of the levy, and said that they were not re- 
quired ; now he was calling for both arms most urgently. The 
officers of the regular army had followed suit. Altliougii 
they were urgently pressed by the politicians to occupy Har- 
per's Ferry and Manassas, they refused to do either, and the 



MR. OLMSTED. 391 

result is that the enemy hMve obtained invaluable supplies from 
the first plaee, and arc now assembled in foree in a most for- 
midable jiosition at the second. Everything as yet aecom- 
plished has been done by politieal generals — not by the 
officers of the regular army. Butler and Banks saved Balti- 
more in spite of General Scott. There was an attempt made 
to cry up Lyon in Missouri ; but in fact it was Frank Blair, 
the brother of the Postmaster-General, who had been the 
soul and body of all the actions in that State. The first step 
taken by McClellan in Western Virginia was atrocious — he 
talked of slaves in a public document as property. Butler, 
at Monroe, had dealt with them in a very different spirit, and 
had used them for State purposes under the name of contra- 
band. One man alone disjdayed powers of administrative 
ability, and that was Quartermaster Meigs ; and unquestion- 
ably from all I heard, the praise was well bestowed. It is 
plain enough that the political leaders fear the consequences 
of delay, and that they are urging the military authorities to 
action, which the latter have too much professional knowledge 
to take with their present means. These Northern men know 
nothing of the South, and with them it is omne ignotum pro 
minimo. The West Point professor listened to them Avitli a 
quiet smile, and exchanged glances with me now and then, 
as much as to say, " Did you ever hear such fools in your 
life ? " » 

But the conviction of ultimate success is not less strong 
here than it is in the South. The difference .between these 
gentlemen and the Southerners is, that in the South the lead- 
ers of the people, soldiers and civilians, are all actually under 
arms, and are ready to make good their words by exposing 
their bodies in battle. 

I walked home with Mr. N. P. Willis, who is at Washing- 
ton for the purpose of writing sketches to the little family 
journal of which he is editor, and giving war " anecdotes ; " 
and with Mr. Olmsted, who is acting as a member of the New 
York Sanitary Commission, here authorized by the Govern- 
ment to take measures against the reign of dirt and disease in 
the Federal camp. The Republicans are very much afraid 
that tliere is, even at the present moment, a conspiracy against 
the Union in Washington — nay, in Congress itself; and re- 
gard Mr. Breckinridge, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Vallandigham, and 
o'.hers as most dangerous enemies, who should not be per- 
mitted to remain in the capital. I attended the Episcopal 



392 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

church and heard a very excellent discourse, free from any 
political allusion. Tiic service differs little from our own, 
except that certain eiiplieniisms are introduced in the Litany 
and elsewhere, and the prayers for Queen and Parliament 
arc ollered up nomine inutalo for President and Congress. 



CHAPTER XLVL 

Arlinpjton Heights and the Potomac — AVashington — The Federal 
eanip — Cu'iieral McDowell — Fl^iiii;- rumors — Newspaper corre- 
spondents — (leneral Fre'mont — Silencing the I'ress and Tele- 
graph — A Loan Bill — Interview with Mr. Cameron — News]u- 
per criticism on Lord Lyons — Rumors ahout McClellan — The 
Northern army as reported and as it is — tieneral McClellan. 

Jidi/ Sf/i. — I hired a horse at a livery stable, and rode out 
to Arlington Heights, at tlie other side of the Potomac, vvliere 
tlie Federal army is encamped, if not on the sacred soil of 
Virginia, certainly on the soil of the District of Columbia, 
ceded by that State to Congress for the pur|)oses of the Fed- 
eral Government. The Long Bridge which spans the rivei", 
here more than a mile broad, is an ancient wooden and brick 
structure, partly of causeway, and partly of platform, laid on 
piles and uprights, with drawbridges for vessels to pass. Tiie 
Potomac, which in peaceful times is covered with small craft, 
now glides in a gentle current over the shallows unbroken by 
a solitary sail. The " rebels " have established batteries b(!- 
low Mount Vernon, which partially command the river, and 
place the city in a state of blockade. 

As a consequence of the magnificent conceptions whicli 
were entertained by the founders regarding the future dimen- 
sions of their future city, Washington is all suburb and no 
city. The only dilference between the denser streets and the 
remoter village-like environs, is that the houses are better and 
more frequent, and the roads not quite so bad in the former. 
The road to the Long Bridge passes by a four-sided shaft of 
blocks of white marble, contributi'd, with appropriate motto«'s, 
by the various States, as a fitting monument to "Washington. 
It is not yet com{)leted, and the jnaterials lie in the field 
around, just as the Capitol and the Treasury are surroundctl 
by the materials for their future and final develoj)ment. 
Further on is the red, and rather fantastic, pile of the Smith- 
sonian Listitute, and then the road makes a dip to the bridge, 
past some squalid little cottages, and the eye reposes on the 
17* 



394 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

shore of Virginia, rising in successive folds, and richly wooded, 
up to a moderate height from the water. Through the green 
forest leaves gleams the white canvas of the tents, and on the 
highest ridge westward rises an imposing structure, with a 
portico and colonnade in front, facing the river, which is called 
Arlington House, and belongs, by descent, through Mr. Custis, 
from the wife of George Washington, to General Lee, Com- 
mander-in-Cliief of the Confederate army. It is now occu- 
pied by General McDowell as his head-quarters, and a large 
United States flag floats from the roof, which shames even 
the ample proportions of the many stars and stripes rising up 
from the camps in the trees. 

At the bridge there Avas a post of volunteer soldiers. The 
sentry on duty was sitting on a stum|), with his firelock across 
his knees, reading a newspaper. He held out his hand for 
my pass, which was in the form of a letter, wi-itten by General 
Scott, and ordering all officers and soldiers of the army of the 
Potomac to permit me to pass freely without let or hindrance, 
and recommending me to the attention of Brigadier-General 
McDowell and all officers und(,'r his orders. " That'll do ; you 
may go," said the sentry. " What pass is that, Abe ? " in- 
quired a non-commissioned officer. " It's from General Scott, 
and says he's to go wherever he likes." " I hope you'll go 
right away to Richmond, then, and get Jeff Davis's scalp for 
us," said the patriotic sergeant. 

At the other end of the bridge a weak tete de pont, com- 
manded by a road-work farther on, covered the approach, and 
turning to the right I passed through a maze of camps, in 
front of which the various regiments, much better than I ex- 
pected to find them, broken up into small detachments, were 
learning elementary drill. A considerable number of the men 
were Germans, and the officers were for the most part in a 
state of profound ignorance of company drill, as might be seen 
by their confusion and inability to take their places when the 
companies faced about, or moved from one flank to the other. 
The}' were by no means equal in size or age, and, with some 
splendid exceptions, were inferior to the Southern soldiers- 
The camps were dirty, no latrines — the tents of various pat- 
terns — but on the whole they were well castrametated. 

The road to Arlington House passed through some of the 
finest woods I have yet seen in America, but the axe waf 
already busy amongst them, and the trunks of giant oaks were 
prostrate on the ground. The tents of the General and his 



AN AMERICAN GENERAL'S STAFF. 395 

small staff were pitched on the little plateau in which stood 
the house, and from it a very striking and picturesque view 
of the city, with the White House, the Treasury, the Post- 
Cffice, Patent-Office, and Capitol, was visible, and a wide 
spread of country, studded witli tents also as far as the eye 
could reach, towards Maryland. There were only four small 
tents for tlie whole of the head-quarters of tlie grand army of 
tlie Potomac, and in front of one we found General McDowell, 
seated in a chair, examining some plans and maps. His per- 
sonal staff, as far as I could judge, consisted of Mr. Clarence 
Brown, who came over witli me, and three other officers, but 
tiiere were a few connected with the departments at work in the 
rooms of Arlington House. I made some remark on the subject 
to the General, who replied that there was great jealousy on 
the part of the civilians respecting the least appearance of dis- 
play, and that as he was only a brigadier, though he was in 
connnand of such a large army, he was obliged to be content 
with a brigadier's staff. Two untidy-looking orderlies, with 
ill-groomed horses, near the house, were poor substitutes for 
tlie force of troopers one would see in attendance on a General 
in Europe, but the use of the telegraph obviates the necessity 
of employing couriers. I went over some of tlie camps with 
the General. The artillery is the most efficient-looking arm 
of the service, but the horses are too light, and the number of 
the different calibres quite destructive to continuous efficiency 
in action. Altogether I was not favorably impressed with 
what I saw, for I had been led by reiterated statements to 
believe to some extent the extravagant stories of the papers, 
and expected to find upwards of 100,000 men in the highest 
state of efficiency, whereas there were not more tlian a third 
of the number, and those in a very incomplete, ill-disciplined 
state. Some of these regiments were called out under the 
President's proclamation for three months only, and will soon 
have served their full time, and as it is very likely they will 
go home, now the bubbles of national enthusiasm have all 
escaped. General Scott is urged not to lose their services, but 
to get into Richmond before they are disbanded. 

It would scarcely be credited, were I not told it by General 
IMcDowell, that there is no such thing procurable as a decent 
map of Virginia. He knows little or nothing of the country 
before him, more than the general direction of the main roads, 
which are bad at, the best; and he can obtain no information, 
inasmuch as the enemy are in full force all along his front, 



396 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and he lias not a cavalry officer capable of conducting a recon- 
noissance, which would be difficult enough in the best hands, 
owing to the dense woods which rise up in front of his lines, 
screening the enemy completely. The Confederates have 
thrown up very heavy batteries at Manassas, about thirty 
miles away, where the railway from the West crosses the line 
to Richmond, and I do not think General McDowell much 
likes the look of them, but the cry for action is so strong the 
President cannot resist it. 

On my way back I rode through the woods of Arlington, and 
came out on a quadrangular earthwork, called Fort Corcoran, 
which is garrisoned by the Sixty-ninth Irish, and commands 
the road leading to an aqueduct and horse-bridge over the 
Potomac. The regiment is encamped inside the fort, which 
would be a slaughter-pen if exposed to shell-fire. The streets 
were neat, the tents protected from the sun by shades of ever- 
greens and pine boughs. One little door, like that of an ice- 
house, half buried in the ground, was opened by one of the 
soldiers, who was showing it to a friend, when my attention 
was more particularly attracted by a sergeant, who ran for- 
ward in great dudgeon, exclaiming " Dempsey ! Is that you 
going into the 'magazine,' wid yer pipe lighted?" I rode 
away with alacrity. 

In the course of my ride I heard occasional dropping shots 
in camp. To my looks of inquiry, an engineer officer said 
quietly, " They are volunteers shooting themselves." The 
number of accidents from the carelessness of the men is aston- 
ishing ; in every day's paper there is an account of deaths and 
wounds caused by the discharge of firearms in the tents. 

Whilst I was at Arlington House, walking through the camp 
attached to head-quarters, I observed a tall, red-bearded officer 
seated on a chair in front of one of the tents, who bowed as I 
passed him, and as I turned to salute him, my eye was caught 
by the apparition of a row of Palmetto buttons down his coat. 
One of the officers standing by said, " Let me introduce you to 
Captain Taylor, from the other side." It appears that he came 
in witli a flag of truce, bearing a despatch from Jefferson Davis 
to President Lincoln, countersigned by General Beauregard at 
Manassas. Just as I left Arlington, a telegraph was sent from 
General Scott to send Captain Taylor, who rejoices in the 
name of Tom, over to his quarters. 

The most absurd rumors were flying about the staff, one of 
whom declared very positively that there was going to be a 



GENERAL FREMONT. 397 

compromise, and that Jeff Davis had made an overture for 
peace. The papers are filled with accounts of an action in 
Missouri, at a place called Carthage, between the Federals 
commanded by Colonel Sigel, consisting for the most part of 
Germans, and the Confederates under General Parsons, in 
which the former were obliged to I'etreat, although it is admit- 
ted the State troops were miserably armed, and had most in- 
effective artillery, whilst their opponents had every advantage 
in both respects, and were commanded by officers of European 
experience. Captain Taylor had alluded to the news in a 
jocular way to me, and said, " I hope you will tell the people 
in England we intend to whip the Lincolnites in the same 
fashion wherever we meet them," a remark which did not lead 
me to believe there was any intention on the part of the Con- 
federates to surrender so easily. 

July ^tli. — Late last night the President told General Scott 
to send Captain Taylor back to the Confederate lines, and he 
was accordingly escorted to Arlington in a carriage, and thence 
returned without any answer to Mr. Davis's letter, the nature 
of which has not transpired. 

A swarm of newspaper correspondents has settled down 
upon Washington, and great are the glorifications of the high- 
toned paymasters, gallant doctors, and subalterns accomplished 
in the art of war, who furnish minute items to my American 
brethren, and provide the yeast which overflows in many col- 
umns ; but the Government experience the inconvenience of 
the smallest movements being chronicled for the use of the 
enemy, who, by putting one thing and another together, are no 
doubt enabled to collect much valuable information. Every 
preparation is being made to put the army on a war foot- 
ing, to provide them with shoes, ammunition wagons, and 
horses. 

I had the honor of dining with General Scott, who has 
moved to new quarters, near the War Department, and met 
General Fremont, who is designated, according to rumor, to 
take command of an important district in the West, and to 
clear the right bank of the Mississippi and the course of the 
Missouri. " The Pathfinder " is a strong Republican and Abo- 
litionist, whom the Germans deliglit to honor, — a man with a 
dreamy, deep blue eye, a gentlemanly address, pleasant features, 
and an active frame, but without the smallest external indica- 
tion of extraordinary vigor, intelligence, or ability ; if he has 
military genius, it must come by intuition, for assuredly he has 



398 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

no professional acquirements or experience. Two or three 
members of" Congress, and the General's staff, and Mr. Bige- 
low, completed the company. The General has become visi- 
bly weaker since I first saw him. He walks down to his 
office, close at hand, with difficulty ; returns a short time be- 
fore dinner, and reposes ; and when he has dismissed his 
guests at an early hour, or even before he does so, stretches 
himself on his bed, and then before midnight rouses himself 
to look at despatches or to transact any necessary business. 
In case of an action it is his intention to proceed to the field 
in a light carriage, which is always ready for the purpose, with 
horses and driver ; nor is he unprepared with precedents of 
great military commanders who have successfully conducted 
engagements under similar circumstances. 

Although the discussion of military questions and of poli- 
tics was eschewed, incidental allusions were made to matters 
going on around us, and 1 thought I could perceive that the 
General regarded the situation with much more apprehension 
than the politicians, and tliat his influence extended itself to 
the views of his staff. General Fremont's tone was much 
more confident. Nothing has become known respecting the 
nature of Mr. Davis's communication to President Lincoln, 
but the fact of his sending it at all is looked upon as a piece 
of monstrous impertinence. The General is annoyed and dis- 
tressed by the plundering propensities of the Federal troops, 
who have been committing terrible depredations on the people 
of Virginia. It is not to be supposed, however, that the Ger- 
mans, who have entered upon this campaign as mercenaries, 
will desist from so profitable and interesting a pursuit as the 
detection of Secesh sentiments, chickens, watches, horses, and 
dollars. I mentioned that I had seen some farm-houses com- 
pletely sacked close to the aqueduct. The General merely 
said, " It is deplorable ! " and raised up his hands as if in dis- 
gust. General Fremont, however, said, " I suppose you are 
familiar with similar scenes in Europe. I hear tlie allies were 
not very particular with respect to private property in Russia" 
— a remark which unfortunately could not be gainsaid. As I 
was leaving the General's quarters, Mr. Blair, accompanied 
by the President, who was looking more anxious than I had 
yet seen him, drove up, and passed througli a crowd of sol- 
diers, who had evidently been enjoying themselves. One of 
tliem called out, " Three cheers for General Scott ! " and I am 
not quite sure the President did not join him. 



THE LOAN BILL. 399 

July \^th. — To-day was spent in a lengthy excursion along 
the front of the camp in Virginia, round by the chain bridge 
which crosses the Potomac about four miles from Washing- 
ton. 

The Government have been coerced, as they say, by the 
safety of the Republic, to destroy the liberty of the press, 
which is guai'anteed by the Constitution, and this is not the 
first instance in which the Constitution of the United States 
will be made nominis umhra. The telegra|)h, according to 
General Scott's order, confirmed by the Minister of War, 
Simon Cameron, is to convey no dispatches respecting military 
movements not permitted by the General ; and to-day the 
newspaper correspondents have agreed to yield obedience to 
the order, reserving to themselves a certain freedom of detail 
in writing their despatches, and relying on the Government to 
publish the official accounts of all battles very speedily. 
They will break this agreement if they can, and the Govern- 
ment will not observe their part of the bargain. The freedom 
of the press, as I take it, does not include the right to publish 
news hostile to the cause of the country in which it is pub- 
lished ; neither can it involve any obligation on the part of 
Government to publish despatches whicli may be injurious to 
the party they represent. There is a wide distinction be- 
tween the publication of news which is known to the enemy 
as soon as to the friends of the transmitters, and the utmost 
freedom of expression concerning the acts of the Government 
or the conduct of past events ; but it will be difficult to estab- 
lish any rule to limit or extend the boundaries to which discus- 
sion can go without mischief, and in effect the only solution of 
the difficulty in a free country seems to be to grant the press 
free license, in consideration of the enormous aid it affijrds in 
warning the people of their danger, in animating them witli 
the news of their successes, and in sustaining the Government 
in their effi^rts to conduct the war. 

The most important event to-day is the passage of the Loan 
Bill, which authorizes Mr. Chase to borrow, in the next year, 
a sum of £50,000,000, on coupons, with interest at seven per 
cent., and irredeemable for twenty years — the interest being 
guaranteed on a pledge of the Customs duties. I just got 
into the House in time to hear Mr. Vallandigham, who is an ul- 
tra Democrat, and very nearly a Secessionist, conclude a well- 
delivered argumentative address. He is a tall, slight man, of 
a bilious temperament, with light flashing eyes, dark hair and 



400 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

complexion, and Considerable oratorical power. " Deera me 
ef I wouldn't just ride that Vallandiggaim on a reay-al," quoth 
a citizen to his friend, as the speaker sat down, amid a few fee- 
ble expressions of assent. Mr. Chase has also obtained the 
consent of the Lower House to his bill for closing the Southern 
ports by the decree of the President, but I hear some more 
substantial measures are in contemplation for that purpose. 
Whilst the House is finding the money the Government are 
preparing to spend it, and tliey have obtained the approval of 
the Senate to the enrolment of half a million of men, and the 
expenditure of one hundred millions of dollars to carry on the 
war. 

I called on Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War. The 
small brick house of two stories, with long passages, in which 
the American Mars prepares his bolts, was, no doubt, large 
enough for the 20,000 men who constituted the armed force on 
land of the great Republic, but it is not sulficient to contain a 
tithe of the contractors who haunt its precincts, fill all the 
lobbies, and crowd into every room. With some risk to coat- 
tails, I squeezed through ii-on-nuxstcrs, gun-makers, clothiers, 
shoemakers, inventors, bakers, and all that genus which fattens 
on the desolation caused by an army in the field, and was in- 
ti'oduced to Mr. Camei-on's room, where he was seated at a 
desk sun-ounded by people, who were also grouped round two 
gentlemen as clerks in the same small room. " I tell you, 
General Cameron, that the way in which the loyal men of 
Missouri have been treated is a disgrace to this Government," 
shouted out a big, black, burly man — "I tell you so, sir." 
" Well, General," responded Mr. Cameron, quietly, " so you 
have several times. Will you, once for all, condescend to par- 
ticulars?" "Yes, sir; you and the Government have disre- 
garded our appeals. You have left us to fight our own battles. 
You have not sent us a cent " "There, General, I in- 
terrupt you. You say we have sent you no money," said Mr. 
Cameron, very quietly. "Mr. Jones will be good enough to 
ask Mr. Smith to step in here." Befon; Mr. Smith came in, 
however, the General, possibly thinking some member of the 
press was present, rolled his eyes in a Nicotian fjcnzy, and 
perorated: "The people of the State of JNIissouri, sir, will 
power-out every drop of the blood which only flows to warm 
l)atriotic hearts in defence of the great Union, which ofiers 
freedom to the enslav(Ml of mankind, and a home to persecuted 
progress, and a few-ture to civil-zation. We demand. General 



MR. SECRETARY CAMERON. 401 

Cameron, in the neame of the great Western Slate- 



Here Mr. Smith came in, and Mr. Cameron said, " I want 
you to tell me what disbursements, if any, have been sent 
by this department to the State of Missouri." Mr. Smith was 
quick at figures, and up in his accounts, for he drew out a 
little memorandum book, and replied (of course, I can't tell 
the exact sum), " General, there has been sent, as by vouchers, 
to Missouri, since the beginning of the levies, six hundred 
iind seventy thousand dollars and twenty-three cents." " The 
General looked crestfallen, but he was equal to the occasion, 
" These sums may have been sent, sir, but they have not been 

received. I declare in the face of " "Mr. Smith will 

show you the vouchers. General, and you can then take any 
steps needful against the parties who have misappropriated 
them." 

" That is only a small specimen of what we have to go 
through with our people," said the Minister, as the General 
went off with a lofty toss of his head, and then gave me a 
pleasant sketch of the nature of the applications and inter- 
views which take up the time and clog the movements of an 
American statesman. " These State organizations give us a 
great deal of trouble." I could fully understand that they did 
so. The immediate business that I had with Mr. Cameron — 
he is rarely called General now that he is Minister of War — 
was to ask him to give me authority to draw rations at cost 
price, in case the army took the field before I could make 
ari'angements, and he seemed very well disposed to accede ; 
" but I must think about it, for I shall have all our papers 
down upon me if I grant you any facility which they do not 
get themselves." After I left the War Department, 1 took a 
walk to Mr. Seward's, who was out. In passing by Presi- 
dent's Square, I saw a respectably-dressed man up in one of 
the trees, cutting off pieces of the bark, which his friends be- 
neath caught up eagerly. I could not help stopping to ask 
what was the object of the proceeding. " Why, sir, this is 

the tree Dan Sickles shot Mr. under. I think it's quite 

a remarkable spot." 

Julij WOi. — The diplomatic circle is so totus teres atque 
rotundus, that few particles of dirt stick on its periphery from 
the road over which it travels. The radii are worked from 
different centi'es, often far apart, and the tires and naves often 
fly out in wide divergence ; but for all social purposes is a 
circle, and a very pleasant one. When one sees M. de 



402 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Stoeckle speaking to M. Mercier, or joining in with Baron 
Gerolt and M. de Lisboa, it is safer to infer that a little social 
I'eunion is at hand for a pleasant civilized discussion of ordi- 
nary topics, some music, a rubber, and a dinner, than to re- 
solve with the New York Oorrespondent, " that there is reason 
to believe that a diplomatic movement of no ordinary signifi- 
cance is on foot, and that the Ministers of Russia, France, and 
Prussia have concerted a plan of action with the representa- 
tive of Brazil, which must lead to extraordinary complications, 
in view of the temporary embarrassments which distract our 
beloved country. The Minister of England has held aloof 
from these reunions for a sinister purpose no doubt, and we 
have not failed to discover that the emissary of Austria, and 
the representative of Guatemala have abstained from taking 
part in these significant demonstrations. We tell the haughty 
nobleman who represents Queen Victoria, on whose son we so 
lately lavished the most liberal manifestations of our good 
will, to beware. The motives of the Court of Vienna, and 
of the Republic of Guatemala, in ordering their representa- 
tives not to join in the reunion which wc observed at three 
o'clock to-day, at the corner of Seventeenth Street and One, 
are perfectly transparent ; but we call on Mr. Seward in- 
stantly to demand of Lord Lyons a full and ample explana- 
tion of his conduct on the occasion, or the transmission of his 
papers. There is no harm in adding, that we have every 
reason to think our good ally of Russia, and the minister of 
the astute monarch, who is only watching an opportunity of 
leading a Franco-American army to the Tower of London 
and Dublin Castle, have already, moved their respective Gov- 
ernments to act in the premises." 

That paragraph, with a good heading, would sell several 
thousands of the " New York Stabber " to-morrow. 

July V2th. — There are rumors that the Federals, under 
Brigadier McClellan, who have advanced into Western Vir- 
ginia, have gained some successes ; but so far it seems to have 
no larger dimensions than the onward raid of one clan against 
anotlier in the Highlands. And whence do rumors come ? 
From Goveimment departments, which, like so many Danaes 
in the clerks' rooms, receive the visits of the auriferous 
Jupiters of the press, who condense themselves into purvey- 
ors of smashes, sHngs, baskets of champagne, and dinners. 
McClellan is, however, considered a very steady and I'espect- 
able professional soldier. A friend of his told me to-day one 



THE NOETHERN ARMY. 403 

of the most serious complaints the Central Illinois Company 
had against him was tliat, during the Italian war, he seemed 
to forget their business ; and that he was busied with maps 
stretclied out on the tloor, whereupon he, superincumbent, 
penned out the points of battle and strategy, when he ought 
to have been attending to passenger trains and traffic. That 
which was flat blasphemy in a railway office, may be amaz- 
ingly approved in the field. 

July Vdth. — I have had a long day's ride through the 
camps of the various regiments across the Potomac, and at 
this side of it, which the weather did not render very agree- 
able to myself, or the poor hack that I had hired for the day, 
till my American Quartermaine gets me a decent mount. I 
wished to see with my own eyes what is the real condition 
of the array which the North have sent down to the Potomac, 
to undertake such a vast task as the conquest of the Soutii. 
The Northern papers describe it as a magnificent force, com- 
plete in all respects, well-disciplined, well-clad, provided with 
line artillery, and with every requirement to make it effective 
for all military operations in the field. 

In one word, then, they are grossly and utterly ignorant of 
what an army is or should be. In the first place, there are not, I 
should think, 30,000 men of all sorts available for the campaign. 
The papers estimate it at any number from 50,000 to 100,000, 
giving the preference to 75,000. In the next place their ar- 
tillery is miserably deficient ; they have not, I should think, 
more than five complete batteries, or six batteries, including 
scratch guns, and these are of different calibres, badly horsed, 
miserably equipped, and provided with the worst set of gun- 
ners and drivers which I, who have seen the Turkish field-guns, 
ever beheld. They have no cavalry, only a few scarecrow 
men, who would dissolve partnership with their steeds at the 
first serious combined movement, mounted in high saddles, on 
wretched mouthless screws, and some few regulars from the 
frontiers, who may be good for Indians, but who would go 
over like ninepins at a charge from Punjaubee irregulars. 
Their transport is tolerably good, but inadequate ; they have 
no carriage for reserve ammunition ; the commissariat drivers 
are civilians, under little or no control ; the officers are un- 
soldierly-looking men ; the camps are dirty to excess ; the 
men are dressed in all sorts of uniforms ; and from what 1 
hear, I doubt if any of these regiments have ever performed 
a brigade evolution together, or if any of the officers know 



404 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

what it is to deploy a brigade from column into line. Tliey 
are mostly three months' men, whose time is nearly up. 
They were rejoicing to-day over the fact that it was so, and 
tiiat they liad kept the enemy from Washington '■ without a 
tiglit." Anil it is with this ial)hlemenl, that the North i)ro- 
poses not only to subdue the South, but aceording to some of 
their pa[)ers, to humiliate Great liritain, and conipier Canada 
afterwards. 

I am opposed to national boasting, but I do firmly believe 
that 10,000 liritish regulars, or 12,000 French, with a proper 
establishment of artillery and cavalry, would not only entirely 
ie|)ulse this army with tiie greatest ease, under competent 
eonnnanders, but that tliey could attack tiiem and march into 
Wasiiington, over them or with them, whenever tlu^y pleased. 
Not tl»at Frenchman or Englishman is perfection, but that the 
American of this army knows notliing of discipline, and what 
is more, cares less for it. 

JNIajor-General McClellan — I beg his pardon for styling him 
Brigadier — has really been successful. By a very well-con- 
ducted and rather rapid march, he was enabled to bring 
superior foi'ces to bear on some raw levies under Geiiei-al 
Garnelt (who came over with me in the steamer), which tied 
alter a few sliots, and were utterly routed, when their gallant 
ct)nunand('r fell, in an abortive attempt to rally them by the 
()anks of the Cheat River. In this " great battle " McClellan's 
loss is less than thirty killed and wounded, and the Confederate 
loss is less than one hundred. But the dispersion of such 
guerrilla bands has the most useful etfect among the people of 
llie district; and JMcClellan has done good service, especially 
as his little victory will lead to the discomiiture of all tiie 
Secessionists in the valley of the Kanawha, and in the val- 
ley of Western Virginia. I left Washington this afternoon, 
with the Sanitary Conunissioners, for Baltimore, in order to 
visit the Federal camps at Fortress Monroe, to which we pro- 
ceeded down the Chesapeake the same night. 



CHAPTER XLVIT. 

Fortress Monroe — Gt'iioral Bailor — ll()s])it;il iu'coniniodation — 
Wounded soldiers — Aristoeratie pedigrees — A ;j,feal u:im — 
Ne\vi)()rt. News — Fraudulent contraelors — (ii-neral IJutier — 
Artillery praetiec — Contraband nejjroes — Confederate lines — 
Tombs of Anierioan loyiilists — Troops and contractors — Dur- 
yea's New York Zouaves — JNIilitary calculations — A voyage by 
steamer to Annapolis. 

Juhj Wth. — At six o'clock this morning the steamer arrived 
at tlic wharf under the walls of Fortress Monroe, which pre- 
sented a v(u"y (litlerent appearance from the quiet of its asi)ect 
when (irst I saw it, sonic months ago. Camps spread around 
it, the parapets lined with sentries, guns looking out (owards 
the land, ligiiters and steamers alongside the whai'f, a strong 
guard at the end of the pier, passes to he serutiuizcul and per- 
mits to he given. I landed with the memhers of the Sanitary 
Commission, and repaired to a very large pile of huildings, 
called " The llygeia Hotel," for once on a time Fortress J\ Eon- 
roe was looked upon as tiie resort of the sickly, wlio required 
hi'acing air and an ahundance of oysters; it is now occupied 
by the wouniled in the several actions and skirmisiies wiiicii 
have taken phice, particularly at lietliel ; and it is so densely 
crowded that we had diiriculty in procuring the use of some 
small dirty rooms to dress in. As the business of the Com- 
mission was principally directed to ascertain the state of the 
hospitals, they considered it necessary in the first instance to 
visit General Butler, the command(M- of the post, who has been 
recommending himself to the Federal Government by his ac- 
tivity ever since he came down to Baltimore, and the whole 
body marched to the fort, crossing the drawbridge after some 
{)arley with the guard, and received permission, on the i)ro- 
(luction of passes, to enter the court. 

The interior of the work covers a space of about seven or 
eight acres, as far as I could judge, and is laid out with some 
di'gree of taste : rows of line trees border the wa.lks through 
the grass plots ; the officers' quarters, neat and snug, are sur- 



400 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

rounded with little palclies of flovvors, and covered with creep- 
ers. All order and nealncs^, however, were last disappearing 
beneath the tramp of mailed feet, for at hiast 1200 men had 
pitched their tents inside the place. We sent in our names to 
the General, who liv(!s in a detached house close to the sea 
face of the fort, and sat down on a bench under the shade of 
some trees, to avoid the excessive heat of the sun until the 
commander of the jjlace could receive the Commissioners. 
He was evidently in no great hurry to do so. In about half 
an hour an aide-de-camp came out to say that the General 
was getting up, and that he would see us after breakfast. 
Some of the Commissioners, from purely sanitary considera- 
tions, would have been much better pleased to have seen him 
at breakfast, as they had only partaken of a very light meal 
on board the steamer at five o'clock in the morning; but we 
were interested meantime by the morning ])arade of a portion 
of the gan-ison, consisting of -lOO i'egulai-s, a Massachusetts 
volunteer battalion, and the 2d New York Regiment. 

It was quite refreshing to the eye to see the cleanliness of 
the regulai's — their white gloves and belts, and polished but- 
tons, contrasted with the slovenly asj)ect of the volunteers ; 
but, as far as the material w(;nt, the volunteers had by far the 
best of the comparison. Tiie civilians who were with me did 
not pay much attention to the regulars, and evidently pre- 
ferred the volunteers, although they could not be insensible to 
the magnificent dium-major who led the band of the regulars. 
Presently General Butler came out of his quarters, and walk- 
ed down t'he lines, followed by a few officers. He is a stout, 
middle-aged man, strongly built, with coarse limbs, his fea- 
tures indicative of great shrewdness and craft, his forehead 
high, the eh^vation being in some degree due j)erhaps to the 
want of hair; with a strong obliquity of vision, which may 
perhaps have been caused by an injury, as the eyelid hangs 
with a peculiar droop over the organ. 

The General, whose manner is quick, decided, and abrupt, 
but not at all rude or un])leasant, at once acceded to ihe 
wishes of the Sanitary Connnissioners, and expressed his de- 
hire to make my stay at the fort as agreeable and useful as 
he could. " You can first visit the hospitals in company with 
these gentlemen, and then come over with me to our camp, 
where I will show you everything that js to be seen. I have 
ordered a steamer to be in readiness to take you to Newport 
News." He speaks rapidly, and either affects or possesses 



A NATIONAL DIFFERENCE. 407 

groat «leci.sioii. The Commissionors accord inj^ly procoeiled to 
make the most of their time in visiting tlie llygeia Hotel, 
being aecompiinied by the medical ofriecr.s of tlie garrison. 

Tlie I'ooms, but a short time ago occupied by (he fair ladies 
of Virginia, when they came down to enjoy the sea-breezes, 
were now crowded with Federal soldiers, many of them suffer- 
ing from the loss of limb or serious wounds, others from tiic; 
worst form of camp disease. I enjoyed a small national 
trium|)lj over Dr. IJellows, IIk; ciiicf of the Commission- 
ers, who is of the '* sangre azul " of Yankecism, by wliieli 
I mean that he is a believer, not in the peric'cLibihly, but 
in the absolute p(^rfection, of New England natui-e which 
is the only human nature that is not utterly lost and aban- 
doned — Old England nature;, perhaps, being the worst of 
all. We had been speaking to the wounded nu^n in sevciral 
rooms, and found most of tliein either in the listless condition 
consequent u|)on exhaustion, oi- with that anxious air wiiich is 
often observable on the faces of the wounded when sti-angers 
approach. At last we came into a room in which two soldit^rs 
were sitting up, the first we had seen, reading the newspapcu's. 
Dr. Bellows asked where they came from ; one was from Con- 
cord, the other from New Haven. " You see, Mr. Russell," 
said Dr. Bellows, " how our Yankee soldiers spend their time. 
1 knew at once they were Americans when I saw them read- 
ing news|)apers." One of them had his hand sliattenid by a 
bullet, the other was suflii^ring from a gun-shot wound through 
the body. " Where were you hit ? " 1 incpiired of the first. 
" Well," he said, " I guess my rille went off when I was 
cleaning it in camp." " Were you wounded at Biithel?" I 
asked of the second. " No, sir," he rcplicid ; " I got this 
wound from a comi'ade, who discharged his piece by accident 
in one of the tents as I was standing (jutside." " 8o," said I, 
to Dr. Bellows, " whilst the Bi'itishers and Germans are en- 
gaged with the enemy, you Americans employ your time 
shooting each other ! " 

These men were true mercenaries, for they were fighting 
lor money — I mean the strangers. One poor fellow from 
Devonshire said, as he pointed to his stump, " I wish I had 
lost it for the sake of the old island, sir," j)ara|)hrasing Sars- 
field's exclamation as he lay dying on the field. The Amer- 
icans were fighting for th(; combined excellences and strength 
of the States oi" New England, and of the rest of the Fed- 
eral power over the Confederates, for they could not in their 



408 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

heart of hearts believe the Old Union could be restored by 
force of arms. Lovers may quarrel and may reunite, but if 
a blow is struck there is no redintegrafio nmori's possible again. 
The newspapers and illustrated periodicals which they read 
were the pabulum that fed the flames of patriotism incessantly. 
Such capacity for enormous lying, both in creation and ab- 
sorption, the world never heard. SutTicient for the hour is 
the falsehood. 

There were lady nurses in attendance on the patients ; who 
followed — let us believe, as I do, out of some higher motive 
than the mere desire of human praise — the example of Miss 
Nightingale. I loitered behind in the rooms, asking many 
questions respecting the nationality of the men, in which the 
members of the Sanitary Commission took no interest, and I 
was just turning into one near the corner of the passage when 
I was stopped by a loud smack. A young Scotchman was 
dividing his attention between a basin of soup and a demure 
young lady from Philadelphia, who was feeding him with a 
spoon, his only arm being engaged in holding her round the 
waist, in order to prevent her being tired, I presume. Miss 
Rachel, or Deborah, had a pair of very pretty blue eyes, but 
they flashed very angrily from under her trim little cap at the 
unwitting intruder, and then she said, in severest tones, " Will 
you take your medicine, or not ? " Sandy smiled, and pre- 
tended to be very penitent. 

When we returned with the doctors from our inspection we 
walked around the parapets of the fortress, why so called I 
know not, because it is merely a fort. The guns and mortars 
are old-fashioned and heavy, with the exception of some new- 
fashioned and very heavy Columbiads, which are cast-iron 
eight, ten, and twelve-inch guns, in which I have no faith what- 
ever. The armament is not suificiently powerful to prevent its 
interior being searched out by the long-range fire of ships with 
rifle guns, or mortar boats ; but it would require closer and 
harder work to breach the masses of brick and masonry which 
constitute the parapets and casemates. The guns, carriages, 
rammers, shot, were dirty, rusty, and neglected ; but General 
Butler told me he was busy polishing up things about the 
forti-ess as. fast as he could. 

Whilst we were parading these hot walls in the sunshine, 
my companions were discussing the question of ancestry. It 
appears your New Englander is vei'y proud of his English de- 
scent from good blood, and it is one of their is msin the Yaa- 



THE "UNION" GUN. 409 

kee States that they are the salt of the British people and the 
true aristocracy of blood and family, whereas we in the isles 
retain but a paltry share of the blue blood defiled by incessant 
infiltrations of the muddy fluid of the outer world. This may 
be new to us Britishers, but is a Q. E. D. If a gentleman 
left Europe 200 years ago, and settled with his kin and kith, 
intermarrying his children with their equals, and thus per- 
petuating an ancient family, it is evident he may be regarded 
as the founder of a much more honorable dynasty than the 
relative who remained behind him, and lost the old family 
place, and sunk into obscurity. A singular illustration of the 
tendency to make much of themselves may be found in the 
fact, that New England swarms with genealogical societies and 
bodies of antiquaries, who delight in reading papers about 
each other's ancestors, and tracing their descent from Norman 
or Saxon barons and earls. The Virginians opposite, who 
are flouting us with their Confederate flag from Sewall's Point, 
are equally given to the " genus et proavos." 

At the end of our promenade round the ramparts. Lieuten- 
ant Butler, the General's nephew and aide-de-camp, came to 
tell us the boat was ready, and we met His Excellency in the 
court-yard, whence we walked down to the wharf On our 
way. General Butler called my attention to an enormous heap 
of hollow iron lying on the sand, which was the Union gun 
that is intended to throw a shot of some 350 lbs. weight or 
more, to astonish the Confederates at Sewall's Point opposite, 
when it is mounted. This gun, if I mistake not, was made 
after the designs of Captain Rodman, of the United States 
artillery, who in a series of remarkable papers, the publica- 
tion of which has cost the country a large sum of money, has 
given us the results of long-continued investigations and ex- 
periments on the best method of cooling masses of iron for 
ordnance purposes, and of making powder for heavy shot. 
The piece must weigh about 20 tons, but a similar gun, mount- 
ed on an artificial island called the Rip Raps, in the channel 
opposite the fortress, is said to be worked with facility. The 
Confederates have raised some of the vessels sunk by the 
United States officers when the Navy Yard at Gosport was 
destroyed, and as some of these are to be converted into rams, 
the Fedei'als are preparing their heaviest ordnance, to try the 
effect of crushing weights at low velocities against their sides, 
should they attempt to play any pranks among the transport 
vessels. The General said : " It is not by these great masses 
18 



410 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

of iron this contest is to be decided ; we must bring sharp 
points of sleel, directed by superior intelligence." Hitherto 
General Butler's attempts at Big Betliel have not been crown- 
ed with success in employing such means, but it must be ad- 
mitted that, according to his own stati-ment, his lieutenants 
were guilty of carelessness and neglect of ordinary military 
precautions in the conduct of the expedition he ordered. The 
march of different columns of troops by night concentrating 
on a given point is always liable to serious interruptions, and 
frequently gives rise to hostile encounters between friends, in 
more disciplined armies than the raw levies of United States 
volunteers. 

When the General, Commissioners, and Staff had embarked, 
the steamer moved across the broad estuary to Newport News. 
Among our passengers were several medical officers in attend- 
ance on the Sanitary Commissioners, some belonging to the army, 
others who had volunteered from civil life. Their discussion 
of professional questions and of relative rank assumed such a 
personal character, that General Butler had to interfere to 
quiet the disputants, but the exertion of his authority was 
not altogether successful, and one of the angry gentlemen 
said in my hearing, " I'm d — d if I submit to such treatment if 
all the lawyers in Massachusetts with stars on their colors 
were to order me to-morrow." 

On arriving at the low shore of Newport News we landed 
at a wooded jetty, and proceeded to visit the camp of the 
Federals, which was surrounded by a strong entrenchment, 
mounted with guns on the water face ; and on the angles 
inland, a bi'oad tract of cultivated country, bounded by a belt 
of trees, extended from the river away from the encampment ; 
but the Confederates are so close at hand that frequent 
skirmishes have occurred between the foraging parties of the 
garrison and the enemy, who have on more tlian one occasion 
pursued the Federals to the very verge of the woods. 

Whilst the Sanitary Commissioners were groaning over 
the heaps of filth which abound in all camps where discipline 
is not most strictly observed, I walked round amongst the 
tents, which, taken altogether, were in good order. The day 
was excessively hot, and many of the soldiei's were 'jing 
down in the shade of arbors formed of branches from the 
neighboring pine wood, but most of them got up when they 
heard the General was coming round. A sentry walked up 
and down at the end of the street, and as the General came 



COLONEL PHELPS AND THE CHIVALRY. 411 

up to him he called out " Halt." The man stood still. " I 
just want to sliow you, sir, what scoundrels our Government 
has to deal with. This man belongs to a regiment which has 
had new clothing recently served out to it. Look wliat it is 
made of." So saying the General stuck his fore-finger into 
the breast of the jpan's coat, and with a rapid scratch of his 
nail tore open the cloth as if it was of blotting paper. 
" Shoddy sir. Nothing but shoddy. I wish I had these con- 
tractors in the trenches here, and if hard work would not 
make honest men of them, they'd have enough of it to be 
examples for the rest of their fellows." 

A vivacious prying man, this Butler, full of bustling life, 
self-esteem, revelling in the exercise of power. In the course 
of our rounds we were joined by Colonel Phelps, who was for- 
merly in the United States army, and saw service in Mexico, 
but retired because he did not approve of the manner in 
which promotions were made, and who only took command of 
a Massachusetts regiment because he believed he might be in- 
strumental in striking a shrewd blow or two in this great battle 
of Armageddon — a tall, saturnine, gloomy, angry-eyed sallow 
man, soldier-like, too, and one who places old John Brown on 
a level with the great martyrs of the Christian world. Indeed 
one, not so fierce as he, is blasphemous enough to place images 
of our Saviour and the hero of Harper's Ferry on the mantel- 
piece, as the two greatest beings the world has ever seen. 
" Yes, I know them well. I've seen them in the field. I've 
sat with them at meals. I've travelled through their country. 
These Southern slave-holders are a false, licentious, godless 
people. Either we who obey the laws and fear God, or they 
who know no God except their own will and pleasure, and 
know no law except their' passions, must rule on this continent, 
and I believe that Heaven will help its own in the conflict they 
have provoked. I grant you they are brave enough, and des- 
perate too, but surely justice, truth, and religion, will strength- 
en a man's arm to strike down those who have only brute force 
and a bad cause to support them." But Colonel Phelps was 
not quite indifferent to material aid, and he made a pressing 
appeal to General Butler to send him some more guns and 
harness for the field-pieces he had in position, because, said 
he, " in case of attack, please God I'll follow them up sharp, 
and cover these fields with their bones." The General had a 
ditficulty about rhe harness, which made Colonel Phelps very 
grim, but General Butler had reason in saying he could not 



412 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

make harness, and so the Colonel must be content with the 
results of a jjood rattling fire of" round, shell, grape and can- 
ister, if the Confederates are foolish enough to attack his bat- 
teries. 

There was nothing to complain of in the camp, except the 
swarms of flies, the very bad smells, and ijgrhaps the shabby 
clothing of the men. The tents were gooci enough. The ra- 
tions were ample, but nevertheless, there was a want of order, 
discipline, and quiet in the lines which did not augur well for 
the internal economy of the regiments. When we returned 
to the river face. General Butler ordered some practice to be 
made with a Sawyer rifle gun, which appeared to be an or- 
dinary cast-iron piece, bored with grooves on the shunt 
principle, the shot being covered with a composition of a metal- 
lic amalgam like zinc and tin, and provided with flanges of the 
same material to fit the grooves. The practice was irregular 
Und unsatisfactory. At an elevation of 24 degrees, the first 
sliot struck tiie water at a point about 2000 yards distant. 
The piece was then further elevated, and the shot struck quite 
out of land, close to the opposite bank, at a distance of nearly 
three miles. The third shot rushed with a peculiar hurt- 
hng noise out of the piece, and flew up in the air, falling 
with a splash into the water about 1500 yards away. Tlie 
next shot may have gone half across the continent, for assur- 
edly it never struck the water, and most probably ploughed 
its way into the soft ground at the other side of the river. 
The shell practice was still worse, and on the whole I wish 
our enemies may always fight us with Sawyer guns, partic- 
ularly as the shells cost between £6 and £7 apiece. 

From the fort the General proceeded to the house of one of 
the officers, near the jetty, formerly t^he residence of a Virgin- 
ian farmer, who has now gone to Secessia, where we were 
most hospitably ti'eated at an excellent lunch, served by the 
slaves of the former proprietor. Although we boast with 
some reason of the easy level of our mess-rooms, the Ameri- 
cans certainly excel us in the art of annihilating all military 
distinctions on such occasions as these ; and I am not sure the 
General would not have liked to place a young doctor in close 
arrest, who suddenly made a dash at the liver wing of a fowl 
on which the General was bent with eye and fork, and carried 
it off to his plate. But on the whole there was a good deal of 
friendly feeling amongst all ranks of the volunteers, the reg- 
ulars being a little stifl' and adherent to etiquette. 



A RIDE TO HAMPTON. 413 

In the afternoon the boat returned to Fortress Monroe, and 
the General invited me to dinner, where I had the pleasure of 
meeting Mrs. Butler, his staff, and a couple of regimental offi- 
cers from the neighboring camp. As it was still early, Gen- 
eral Butler proposed a ride to visit the interesting village of 
Hampton, which lies some six or seven miles outside the fort, 
and forms his advance post. A powerful charger, with a tre- 
mendous Mexican saddle, fine housings, blue and gold em- 
broidered saddle-cloth, was brought to the door for your hum- 
ble servant, and the General mounted another, which did 
equal credit to his taste in horseflesh ; but I own I felt rather 
uneasy on seeing that he wore a pair of large brass spurs, 
strapped over white jean brodequins. He took with him his 
aide-de-camp and a couple of orderlies. In the precincts of 
the fort outside, a population of contraband negroes has been 
collected, whom the General employs in various works about 
the place, military and civil ; but I failed to ascertain that the 
original scheme of a debit and credit account between the 
value of their labor and the cost of their maintenance had 
been successfully carried out. The General was proud of 
them, and they seemed proud of themselves, saluting him 
with a ludicrous mixture of awe and familiarity as he rode 
past. " How do, Massa Butler ? How do, General ? " ac- 
companied by absurd bows and scrapes. " Just to think," 
said the General, " that every one of these fellows represents 
some one thousand dollars at least out of the pockets of the 
chivalry yonder." " Nasty, idle, dirty beasts," says one of the 
staff, sotto voce ; " I wish to Heaven they were all at the bot- 
tom of the Chesapeake. The General insists on it that they 
do work, but they are far more trouble than they are worth." 

The road towards Hampton traverses a sandy spit, which, 
however, is more fertile than would be supposed from the soil 
under the horses' hoofs, though it is not in the least degree in- 
teresting. A broad creek or river interposed between us and 
the town, the bridge over which had been destroyed. Work- 
men were busy repairing it, but all ihe planks had not yet 
been laid down or nailed, and in some places the open space 
between the upright rafters allowed us to see the dark waters 
flowing beneath. The Aide said, " I don't think. General, it 
is safe to cross ; " but the chief did not mind him until his 
horse very nearly crashed through a plank, and only regained 
its footing with unbroken legs by marvellous dexterity ; where- 
upon we dismounted, and, leaving the horses to be carried over 



414 MY J TARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

in the ferry-boat, completed the rest of the transit, not with- 
out difficulty. At the other end of the bridge a street lined 
with comfortable houses, and bordered with trees, led us into 
the pleasant town or village of Hampton — pleasant once, but 
now deserted by all the inhabitants except some pauperized 
whites and a colony of negroes. It was in full occupation of 
the Federal soldiers, and I observed that most of the men 
were Germans, the gari'ison at Newport News being princi- 
pally composed of Americans. The old red brick houses, 
with cornices of white stone ; the narrow windows and high 
gables ; gave an aspect of antiquity and European comfort to 
the place, the like of which I have not yet seen in the States. 
Most of the shops were closed ; in some the shutters were still 
down, and the goods remained displayed in the windows. " I 
have allowed no plundering," said the General; "and if I find 
a fellow trying to do it, I will hang him as sure as my name 
is Butler. See here," and as he spoke he walked into a large 
woollen-draper's shop, where bales of cloth were still lying on 
the shelves, and many articles such as are found in a large 
general store in a country town were disposed on the floor or 
counters ; " they shall not accuse the men under my command 
of being robbers." The boast, however, was not so well jus- 
tified in a visit to another house occupied by some soldiers. 
" Well," said the General, with a smile, " I dare say you know 
enough of camps to have found out that chairs and tables are 
irresistible ; the men will take them oflf to their tents, though 
they may have to leave them next morning." 

The principal object of our visit was the fortified trench 
which has been raised outside the town towards the Confed- 
erate lines. The j^ath lay through a church-yard filled with 
most intei'esting monuments. The sacred edifice of red brick, 
with a square clock-tower rent by lightning, is rendered inter- 
esting by the fact that it is almost the first church built by the 
English colonists of Virginia. On the tombstones are recorded 
the names of many subjects of His Majesty George HI., and 
familiar names of persons born in the early part of last cen- 
tury in English villages, who passed to their rest before the 
great rebellion of the Colonies had disturbed their notions of 
loyalty and respect to the crown. Many a British subject, 
too, lies there, whose latter days must have been troubled by 
the strange scenes of the war of independence. With what 
doubt and distrust must that one at whose tomb I stand have 
heard that George Washington was making head against the 



GENERAL BUTLER. 415 

troops of His Majesty King George III, ! How the hearts 
of the old men who had passed the best years of their exist- 
ence, as these stones tell us, fighling for His Majesty against 
the French, must have beaten when once more they heard the 
roar of Frenchman's ordnance unitmg with the voices of the 
rebellious guns of the colonists from the plains of Yorktown 
against the entrenchments in which Cornwallis and his de- 
serted band stood at hopeless bay ! But could these old eyes 
open again, and see General Butler standing on the eastern 
rampart which bounds their resting-])lace, and pointing to the 
spot whence the i-ebel cavalry of Virginia issue night and day 
to charge the loyal pickets of His Majesty The Union, they 
might take some comfort in the fultilraent of the vaticinations 
which no doubt they uttered, " It cannot, and it will not, come, 
to good." 

Having inspected the works — as far as I could judge, too 
extended, and badly traced — which I say with all deference 
to the able young engineer who accompanied us to point out 
the various oojects of interest — the General returned to the 
bridge, where we remounted, and made a tour of the camps 
of the force intended to defend Hampton, falling back on 
Fortress Monroe in case of necessity. Whilst he was riding 
ventre a terre, which seems to be his favorite pace, his horse 
stumbled in the dusty road, and in his effort to keep his seat 
the General broke his stirrup leather, and the ponderous brass 
stirrup fell to the ground ; but, albeit a lawyer, he neither lost 
iiis seat nor his sang froid, and calling out to his orderly " to 
pick up his toe plate," the jean slippers were closely pressed, 
spurs and all, to the sides of his steed, and away we went once 
more through dust and heat so great I was by no means sorry 
when he pulled up outside a pretty villa, standing in a garden, 
wliich was occupied by Colonel Max Weber, of the German 
Turner Regiment, once the property of General Tyler. The 
camp of the Turners, who are members of various gymnastic 
societies, was situated close at hand ; but I had no opportunity 
of seeing them at work, as the Colonel insisted on oui- par- 
taking of the hospitalities of his little mess, and produced some 
bottles of sparkling hock and a block of ice, by no means un- 
welcome after our fatiguing ride. His Major, wiiose name I 
liave unfortunately forgotten, and who spoke English better 
than his chietj had served in some capacity or other in the 
Crimea, and made many inquiries after the officers of the 
Guards whom he had known there. I took an opportunity of 



416 MY DIARY NORTH AND St)UTH. 

asking him in what state the troops were. " The whole thing 
is a robbery," he exclaimed ; " tliis war is for the contractors ; 
the men do not get a third of what the Government pay for 
them ; as for disciphne, my God ! it exists not. We Germans 
are well enough, of course ; we know our affair ; but as for 
the Americans, what would you ? They make colonels out of 
doctoi's and lawyers, and captains out of fellows who are not 
fit to brush a soldier's shoe." " But the men get their pay ? " 
" Yes that is so. At the end of two months, they get it, and 
by that time it is due to sutlers, who charge them 100 per 
cent." 

It is easy to believe these old soldiers do not put much con- 
fidence in General Butler, though they admit his energy. 
" Look you ; one good officer with 5,000 steady troops, such 
as we have in Europe, shall come down any night and walk 
over us all into Fortress Monroe whenever he pleased, if he 
knew how these troops were placed." 

On leaving the German Turners, the General visited the 
camp of Duryea's New York Zouaves, who were turned out 
at evening parade, or more properly speaking, drill. But for 
the ridiculous effect of their costume the regiment would have 
looked well enough ; but riding down on the rear of the ranks 
the discolored napkins tied round their heads, without any fez 
cap beneath, so that the hair sometimes stuck up through the 
folds, the ill-made jackets, the loose bags of red calico hanging 
from their loins, the long gaiters of white cotton — instead ot 
the real Zouave yellow and black greave, and smart white 
gaiter — made them appear such military scarecrows, I could 
scarcely refrain from laughing outright. Nevertheless the 
men were respectably drilled, marched steadily in columns of 
company, wheeled into line, and went past at quarter distance 
at the double much better than could be expected from the 
short time they had been in the field, and I could with all 
sincerity say to Colonel Duryea, a smart and not unpretentious 
gentleman, who asked my opinion so pointedly that I could 
not refuse to give it, that I considered the appearance of the 
regiment very creditable. The shades of evening were now 
falling, and as I had been up before 5 o'clock in the morning, 
I was not sorry when General Butler said, " Now we will go 
home to tea, or you will detain the steamer." He had ar- 
ranged before I started that the vessel, which in ordinary course 
would have returned to Baltimore at eight o'clock, should re- 
main till he sent down word to the Captain to go. 



EVIPORTANCE OF SUFFOLK. 417 

We scampered back to the fort, and judging from the chal- 
lenges and vigilance of the sentries, and inlying pickets, I am 
net quite so satisfied as the Major that the enemy could have 
surprised the place. At the tea-table there were no additions 
to the General's family ; he therefore spoke without any re- 
serve. Going over the ma\), he explained his views in refer- 
ence to future operations, and showed cause, with more mili- 
tary acumen than I could have expected from a gentleman of 
the long robe, why he believed Fortress Monroe was the true 
base of operations against Richmond. 

I have been convinced for some time, that if a sufficient 
force could be left to cover Washington, the Federals should 
move against Richmond from the Peninsula, where they could 
form their depots at leisure, and advance, protected by their 
gunboats, on a very short line which offers far greater facilities 
and advantages than the inland route from Alexandria to Rich- 
mond, which, difficult in itself from the nature of the country, 
is exposed to the action of a hostile population, and, above all, 
to the danger of constant attacks by the enemies' cavalry, 
tending more or less to destroy all communication with the 
base of the Federal operations. 

The threat of seizing Washington led to a concentration of 
the Union troops in front of it, which caused in turn the col- 
lection of the Confederates on the lines below to defend Rich- 
mond. It is plain that if the Federals can cover Washington, 
and at the same time assemble a force at Monroe strong 
enough to march on Richmond, as they desire, the Confeder- 
ates will be placed in an exceedingly hazardous position, 
scarcely possible to escape from ; and there is no reason why 
the North, with their overwhelming preponderance, should not 
do so, unless they be carried away by the fatal spirit of brag 
and bluster which comes from their press to overrate their 
own strength and to despise their enemy's. The occupation of 
Suftblk will be seen, by any one who studies the map, to affi^rd 
a most powerful leverage to the Federal forces from JVIonroe 
in their attempts to turn the enemy out of their camps (Jf com- 
munication, and to enable them to menace Richmond as well 
as the Southern States most seriously. 

But whilst the General and I are engaged over our maps 
and mint juleps, time flies, and at last I perceive by the clock 
it is time to go. An aide is sent to stop the boat, but he re- 
turns ere I leave with the news that " She is gone." Where- 
upon the General sends for the Quartermaster Talmadge, who 
18* 



418 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

is out in the camps, and only arrives in time to receive a se- 
vere " wigfjing." It so happened that I had important papers 
to send off by the next mail from New York, and the only 
chance of being able to do so depended on my being in Balti- 
more next day. General Butler acted with kindness and 
promptitude in the matter. " I promised you should go by the 
steamer, but the captain has gone off without orders or leave, 
for which he shall answer when I see him. Meantime it is 
my business to keep my promise. Captain Talmadge, you 
will at once go down and give orders to the most suitable trans- 
port steamer or chartered vessel available, to get up steam at 
once and come up to the wharf for Mr. Russell." 

Whilst I was sitting in the parlor which served as the Gen- 
eral's office, there came in a pale, bright-eyed, slim young man 
in a subaltern's uniform, who sought a private audience, and 
unfolded a plan he had formed, on certain data gained by noc- 
turnal expeditions, to surprise a body of the enemy's cavalry 
which was in the habit of coming down every night and dis- 
turbing the pickets at Hampton. His manner was so eager, 
his information so precise, that the General could not refuse 
his sanction, but he gave it in a characteristic manner. " AVell, 
sir, I understand your proposition. You intend to go out as a 
volunteer to effect this service. You ask my permission to 
get men for it. I cannot grant you an order to any of the 
officers in command of regiments to provide you with these ; 
but if the Colonel of your regiment wishes to give leave to his 
men to volunteer, and they like to go with you, I give you 
leave to take them. I wash my hands of all responsibility in 
the affaii*." The officer bowed and retired, saying, " That is 
quite enough, General." * 

At ten o'clock the Quartermaster came back to say that a 
screw steamer called The Elizabeth was getting up steam for 
my reception, and I bade good-by to the General, and walked 
down with his aide and nephew. Lieutenant Butler, to the 
Hygeia Hotel to get my light knapsack. It was a lovely 
moonlight night, and as I was passing down an avenue of 
trees an officer stopped me, and exclaimed, " General Butler, 
I hear you have given leave to Lieutenant Blank to take a 

* It may be stated here, that tliis expedition met with a disastrous 
result. If I mistake not, tlie officer, and witli him the correspondent 
of a paper who accompanied him, were killed by the cavalry whom 
be meant to surprise, and several of the volunteers were also killed or 
wounded. 



THE SAD SEA WAVE. 419 

party of my regiment and go off scouting to-night after the 
enemy. It is too hard that — " What more he was going to 
say I know not, for I corrected the mistake, and the officer 
walked hastily on towards the General's quarters. On reach- 
ing the Hygeia Hotel I was met by the cori-espondent of a 
New York paper, who as commissary-general, or, as they are 
styled in the States, officer of subsistence, had been charged to 
get the boat ready, and who explained to me it would be at 
least an hour before the steam was up ; and whilst I was wait- 
ing in the porch I heard many Virginian, and old-world stories 
as well, the general upshot of which was that all the rest of the 
world could be "done" at cards, in love, in drink, in horse- 
flesh, and in fighting, by the true-born American. General 
Butler came down after a time, and joined our little society, nor 
was he by any means the least shrewd and humorous racon- 
teur of the party. At eleven o'clock The Elizabeth uttered 
some piercing cries, which indicated she had her steam up ; 
and so I walked down to the jetty, accompanied by my host 
and his friends, and wishing them good-by, stepped on board 
the little vessel, and with the aid of the negro cook, steward, 
butler, boots, and servant, roused out the captain from a small 
wooden trench which he claimed as his berth, turned into it, 
and fell asleep just as the first difficult convulsions of the screw 
aroused the steamer from her coma, and forced her languidly 
against the tide in the direction of Baltimore. 

Juhj Ibth. — I need not speak much of the events of last 
night, which were not unimportant, perhaps to some of the in- 
sects which played a leading part in them. The heat was 
literally overpowering ; for in addition to the hot night there 
was the full power of most irritable boilers close at Iiand to 
aggravate the natural desagremens of the situation. About an 
hour after dawn, when I turned out on deck, there was nothing 
visible but a warm gray mist ; but a knotty old pilot on deck 
told me we were only going six knots an hour against tide and 
wind, and that we were likely to make less way as the day 
wore on. In fact, instead of being near Baltimore, we were 
much nearer Fortress Monroe. Need I repeat the horrors of 
this day ? Stewed, boiled, baked, and grilled on board this 
miserable ' Elizabeth, I wished M. Montalembert could have 
experienced with me what such an impassive nature could in- 
flict in misery ,on those around it. The captain was a shy, 
silent man, much given to short naps in ray temporary berth, 
and the mate was so wild, he might have swam off with per- 



420 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

feet propriety to the woods on either side of us, and taken to a 
tree as an aborigine or chimpanzee. Two men of most retiring 
habits, the negro, a black boy, and a very fat negress who 
officiated as cook, filled up the " balance" of the crew. 

I could not write, for the vibration of the deck of the little 
craft gave a St. Vitus dance to pen and pencil ; reading was 
out of the question from the heat and flies ; and below stairs 
the fat cook banished repose by vapors from her dreadful 
caldrons, where, Medea-like, she was boiling some death broth. 
Our breakfast was of the simplest and — may I add ? — the least 
enticing ; and if the dinner could have been worse it was so ; 
though it was rendered attractiv^e by hunger, and by the kind- 
ness of the sailors who shared it with me. The old pilot had a 
most wholesome hatred of the Britisliers, and not having the 
least idea till late in the day that I belonged to the old country, 
favored me with some very remarkable views respecting their 
general mischievousness and inutilit}'. As soon as he found 
out my secret he became more reserved, and explained to me 
that he had some reason for not liking us, because all he had in 
the world, as pretty a schooner as ever floated and a fine cargo, 
had been taken and burnt by the English when they sailed up 
the Potomac at Washington, He served against us at Bla- 
densburg. I did not ask him how fast he ran ; but he had a 
good rejoinder ready if I had done so, inasmuch as he was 
up West under Commodore Perry on the lakes when we suf- 
fered our most serious reverses. Six knots an hour ! hour 
after hour ! And nothing to do but to listen to the pilot. 

On both sides a line of forest just visible above the low 
shores. Small coasting craft, schooners, pungies, boats laden 
with wood creeping along in the shallow water, or plying 
down empty before wind and tide. 

" I doubt if we'll be able to catch up them forts afore night," 
said the skipper. The pilot grunted, " I rather think yu'U 

not." " H and thunder ! Then we'll have to lie off till 

daylight ? " " They may let you pass. Captain Squires, as 
you've this Europe-an on board, but anyhow we can't fetch 
Baltimore till late at night or early in the morning." 

I heard the dialogue, and decided very quickly that as An- 
napolis lay somewhere ahead on our left, and was much nearer 
than Baltimore, it would be best to run for it while there was 
daylight. The captain demurred. He had been ordered to 
take his vessel to Baltimore, and General Butler might come 
down on him for not doing so ; but I proposed to sign a letter 



A CHESAPEAKE PILOT. 421 

stating he had gone to Annapolis at my request, and the 
steamer was put a point or two to westward, much to the 
pleasure of the Palinurus, whose " old woman " lived in the 
town. I had an affection for this weather-beaten, watery- 
eyed, honest old fellow, who hated us as cordially as Jack 
detested his. Frenchman in the old days before ententes cordi- 
ales were known to the world. He was thoroughly English 
in his belief tliat he belonged to the only sailor i-ace in the 
world, and that they could beat all mankind in seamanship ; 
and he spoke in the most unaffected way of the Britishers as a 
survivor of the old war might do of Johnny Crapaud — " They 
were brave enough no doubt, but, Lord bless you, see them 
in a gale of wind ! or look at them sending down top-gallant 
masts, or anything sailor-like in a breeze. You'd soon see 
the differ. And, besides, they never can stand again us at 
close quarters." By and by the houses of a considerable 
town, crowned by steeples, and a large Corinthian-looking 
building, came in view. " That's the State House. That's 
where George Washington — first in peace, first in war, and 
first in the hearts of his countrymen — laid down his victori- 
ous sword without any one asking him, and retired amid the 
applause of the civilized world." This flight I am sure was 
the old man's treasured relic of school-boy days, and I'm not 
sure he did not give it to me three times over. Annapolis 
looks very well from the river side. The approach is guarded 
by some very poor earthwoi-ks and one small fort. A dis- 
mantled sloop of war lay off a sea wall, banking up a green 
lawn covered with trees, in front of an old-fashioned pile of 
buildings, which formerly, I think, and very recently indeed, 
was occupied by the cadets of the United States Naval School. 
" There was a lot of them Seceders. Lord bless you ! these 
young ones is all took by these States Rights' doctrines — 
just as the ladies is caught by a new fashion." 

About seven o'clock the steamer hove along-side a wooden 
pier which was quite deserted. Oidy some ten or twelve sail- 
ing boats, yachts, and schooners lay at anchor in the placid 
waters of the port which was once the capital of Maryland, 
and for which the early Republicans j)rophesied a great 
future. But Baltimore has eclipsed Annapolis into utter ob 
scurity. I walked to the only hotel in the place, and found 
that the train for the junction with Washington had started, 
and that the next train left at some impossible hour in the 
morning. It is an odd Rip Van Winkle sort of a place. 



422 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Quaint-lookinj^ boarders came down to the tea-table and talked 
Secession, and wlien I was detected, as must ever soon be the 
case, owing to the hotel-book, I was treated to some ill-favored 
glances, as my recent letters have been denounced in the 
strongest way for their supposed hostility to States Rights and 
the Domestic Institution. The spirit of the people has, how- 
ever, been broken by the Federal occupation, and by the de- 
cision with which Butler acted when he came down here with 
the troops to open communications with Washington after the 
Baltimoreans had attacked the soldiery on their way through 
the city from the north. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

The " State House " at Annapolis — Washington — General Scott's 
quarters — Want of a staff — llival camps — Deinaiid for horses 
— Popular excitement — Lord Lyons — General McDowell's 
movements — Uetreatt'rom Fairfax Court-House — General Scott's 
quarters — General Manslield — Battle of Bull's Kun. 

July \Qith. — I baffled many curious and civil citizens by 
breakfasting in my room, where I remained writing till late 
in tlie day. In the afternoon I walked to the Slate House. 
The hall door was open, but the rooms were closed ; and I 
remained in the hall, which is graced by two indifferent huge 
statues of Law and Justice holding gas lam[)s, and by an old 
rusty cannon, dug out of the river, and supposed to have be- 
longed to the original British colonists, whilst an officer whom 
I met in the portico went to look for the i)orter and the keys. 
Whether he succeeded I cannot say, for after waiting some 
half hour I was warned by my watch that it was time to get 
ready for the train, which started at 4.1. '5 r. M. The country 
through which the single line of rail passes is very hilly, much 
wooded, little cultivated, cut up by water-courses and ravines. 
At the junction with fhe Washington line from liallimore 
there is a strong guard thrown out from th(; camp near at 
hand. The officers, who had a mess in a little wayside inn 
on the line, invited me to rest till the train came up, and from 
them I heard that an advance had been actually ordenid, and 
that if the " rebels " stood there would soon be a tall light 
close to Washington. They were very cheery, hos|)itable fel- 
lows, and enjoyed their new mode of life amazingly. The 
men of the regiment to which they belonged were Germans, 
almost to a man. When the train came in I found it was I'ull 
of soldiers, and I learned that three more heavy trains were 
to follow, in addition to four which had already passed laden 
with troops. 

Ou arriving at the Washington platform, the first person I 
saw was General McDowell alone, looking anxiously into the 



I 



424 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

carriages. He asked where I came from, and when he heard 
from Annapolis, inquired eagerly if I had seen two batteries 
of artillery — Barry's and another — which he had ordered 
up, and was waiting for, but which had " gone astray." I was 
surprised to find the General engaged on such duty, and took 
leave to say so. " Well, it is quite true, Mr. Russell ; but I 
am obliged to look after them myself, as I have so small a 
sUiff, and they are all engaged out with my head-quarters. 
You are aware I have advanced ? No ! Well, you have just 
come in time, and I shall be happy, indeed, to take you with 
me. I have made arrangements for the correspondents of 
our papers to take the field under certain regulations, and I 
have suggested to them they should wear a white uniform, to 
indicate the purity of their character." The General could 
hear nothing of his guns ; his carriage was waiting, and I ac- 
cepted his offer of a seat to my lodgings. Althougb he spoke 
confidently, he did not seem in good spirits. There was the 
greatest difficulty in finding out anytiiing about the enemy. 
Beauregard was said to have advanced to Fairfax Court House, 
but he could not get any certain knowledge of the fact. " Can 
you not order a reconnoissance ? " " Wait till you see the 
country. But even if it were as flat as Flanders, I have not 
an officer on whom I could depend for the work. They would 
fall into some trap, or bring on a general engagement when I 
did not seek it or desire it. I have no cavalry such as you work 
with in Europe." I think he was not so much disposed to 
undervalue the Confederates as before, for he said they had 
selected a very strong position, and had made a regular levee 
en masse of the people of Virginia, as a proof of the energy 
and determination with which they were entering on the cam- 
paign. 

As we parted the General gave me his photograph, and 
told me he expected to see me in a few days at his quarters, 
but that I would have plenty of time to get horses and ser- 
vants, and such light equipage as I wanted, as there would be 
no engagement for several days. On arriving at my lodgings 
I sent to the livery-stables to inquire after horses. None fit 
for the saddle to be had at any price. The sutlers, the cav- 
alry, the mounted officers, had been purchasing up all the 
droves of horses which caine to the markets. McDowell had 
barely extra mounts tor his own use. And yet horses must be 
had ; and, even provided with them, I must take the ^eld with- 
out tent or servant, canteen or food — a waif to fortune. 



THE ADVANCE. 425 

July 17th. — I went up to General Scott's quarters, and 
saw some of his staff — young men, some of whom knew 
nothing of soldiers, not even the enforcing of drill — and found 
them reflecting, doubtless, the shades which cro?;s the mind 
of the old chief, who was now seeking repo.-e. McDowell is 
to advance to-morrow from Fairfax Court House, and will 
march some eight or ten miles to Centreville, directly in front 
of which, at a place called Manassas, stands the army of the 
Southern enemy. I look around me for a staff, and look in 
vain. There are a few plodding old pedants, with map and 
rules and compasses, who sit in small rooms and write memo- 
randa ; and there are some ignorant and not very active young 
men, who loiter about the head-quarters' halls, and strut up 
the street with brass spurs on their heels and kepis raked over 
their eyes as though they were soldiers, but I see no system, 
no order, no knowledge, no dash ! 

The worst-served English General has always a young fel- 
low or two about him who can fly across country, draw a 
rough sketch map, ride like a fox-hunter, and find something 
out about the enemy and their position, understand and convey 
orders, and obey them. I look about for the types of these in 
vain. McDowell can find out nothing about the enemy ; he 
has not a trustworthy map of the country ; no knowledge of 
their position, force, or numbers. All the people, he says, are 
against the Government. Fairfax Court House was aban- 
doned as he approached, the enemy in their retreat being fol- 
lowed by the inhabitants. " Where were the Confederate en- 
trenchments ? " " Only in the imagination of those New York 
newspapers ; when they want to fill up a column they write a 
full account of tJie enemy's fortifications. No one can contra- 
dict them at the time, and it's a good joke when it's found &bt 
to be a lie." Colonel Cullum went over the maps with me at 
General Scott's, and spoke with some greater confidence of 
McDowell's prospects of success. There is a considerable 
force of Confederates at a place called Winchester, which is 
connected with Manassas by rail, and this force could be 
thrown on the right of the Federals as they advanced, but 
that another corps, under Patterson, is in observation, with 
orders to engage them if they attempt to move eastwards. 

The batteries for which General McDowell was looking last 
night have arrived, and were sent on this morning. One is 
under Barry, of the United States regular artillery, whom I 
met at Fort Pickens. The other is a volunteer battery. The 



426 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

onward movement of the army has been productive of a great 
improvement in the streets of Washington, which are no longer 
crowded with turbulent and disorderly volunteers, or by 
soldiers disgracing the name, who accost you in the by-ways 
for money. There are comparatively few to-day ; small shoals, 
which have escaped the meshes of the net, are endeavoring to 
make the most of their time before they cross the river to face 
the enemy. 

Still horse-hunting, but in vain — Gregson, Wroe — et hoc 
genus omne. Nothing to sell except at unheard-of rates ; 
tripeds, and the like, much the worse for wear, and yet pos- 
sessed of some occult virtues, in right of which tlie owners 
demanded egregious sums. Everywhere I am offered a gig or 
a vehicle of some kind or another, as if the example of Gen- 
eral Scott had rendered such a mode of campaigning the cor- 
rect thing. I saw many officers driving over the Long Bridge 
with large stores of provisions, either unable to procure horses 
or satisfied that a wagon was the chariot of Mars. It is not 
fair to ridicule either officers or men of this array, and if they 
were not so inflated by a pestilent vanity, no one would dream 
of doing so ; but the excessive bragging and boasting in which 
the volunteers and the press indulge really provoke criticism 
and tax patience and forbearance overmuch. Even the regu- 
lar officers, who have some idea of military efficiency, rather 
derived from education and foreign travels than from actual 
experience, bristle up and talk proudly of the patriotism of the 
army, and challenge the world to show such another, although 
in their hearts, and more, with their lips, they own they do -not 
depend on them. The white heat of patriotism has cooled 
down to a dull black ; and I am told that the gallant volunteers, 
WTO are to conquer the world when they " have got through 
with their present little job," are counting up the days to the 
end of their service, and openly declare they will not stay a 
day longer. This is pleasant, inasmuch as the end of the term 
of many of McDowell's, and most of Patterson's, three months' 
men, is near at hand. They have been faring luxuriously at 
tlie expense of the Government — they have had nothing to do 
— they have had enormous pay — they knew nothing, and were 
worthless as to soldiering when they were enrolled. Now, 
having gained all these advantages, and being likely to be of 
use for the first time, they very quietly declare they are going 
to sit under their fig-trees, crowned with civic laurels and 
myrtles, and all that sort of thing. But who dare say they are 



THE FIRST SKIEMISH. 427 

not splendid fellows — full-blooded heroes, patriots, and warriors 
--men before whose majestic presence all Europe pales and 
-faints away ? 

In the evening I received a message to say that the ad- 
vance of the army would take place to-morrow as soon as 
General McDowell had satisfied himself by a reconnoissance 
that he could carry out his plan of turning the right of the 
enemy by passing Occaguna Creek. Along Pennsylvania 
Avenue, along the various shops, hotels, and drinking-bars, 
groaps of people were collected, listening to the most exag- 
gerated accounts of desperate fighting and of the utter de- 
moralization of the rebels. I was rather amused by hearing 
the florid accounts which were given in the hall of Willard's 
by various inebriated officers, who were drawing upon their 
imagination for their facts, knowing, as I did, that the en- 
trenchments at Fairfax had been abandoned without a shot on 
the advance of the Federal troops. The New York papers 
came in with glowing descriptions of the magnificent march 
of the grand army of the Potomac, which was stated to con- 
sist of upwards of 70,000 men ; whereas I knew not half 
that number were actually on the field. Multitudes of people 
believe General Winfield Scott, who was now fast asleep in 
his modest bed in Pennsylvania Avenue, is about to take the 
field in person. The horse-dealere are still utterly impracti- 
cable. A citizen who owned a dark bay, spavined and rino-- 
boned, asked me one thousand dollars for the right of posses- 
sion. I ventured to suggest that it was not worth the money. 
" Well," said he, " take it or leave it. If you want to see 
this fight, a thousand dollars is cheap. I guess there were 
chaps paid more than that to see Jenny Lind on her first 
night; and this battle is not going to be repeated, I can tell 
you. The price of horses will rise when the chaps out there 
have had themselves pretty well used up with bowie-knives 
and six-shooters." 

July 18t/i. — After breakfiist. Leaving head-quarters, I 
went across to General Mansfield's, and was going up-stairs, 
when the General* himself, a white-headed, gray-bearded' 
and rather soldierly-looking man, dashed out of his room in 
some excitement, and exclaimed, " Mr. Russell, I fear there 
is bad news from the front." " Are they fighting. General ? " 
" Yes, sir. That fellow Tyler has been enaaged, and we are 
whipped." Again 'I went off to the horses-dealer; but this 
* Since killed in action. 



428 MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

time the price of the steed had been raised to £220 ; " for," 
says he, " I don't want my animals to be ripped up by them 
cannon and them musketry, and those who wish to be guilty 
of such cruelty must pay for it." At the War-Office, at the 
Department of State, at the Senate, and at the White House, 
messengers and orderlies running in and out, military aides, 
and civilians with anxious faces, betokened the activity and 
perturbation which reigned within. I met Senator Sumner 
radiant with joy. " We have obtained a great success ; the 
rebels are falling back in all directions. General Scott says 
we ought to be in liichraond by Saturday night." Soon after- 
wai'ds a United States officer, who had visited me in company 
with General Meigs, riding rapidly past, called out, " You 
have heard we are whipped ; these confounded volunteers 
have run away." I drove to the Capitol, where people said 
one could actually see the smoke of the cannon ; but, on ar- 
riving there, it was evident that the fire from some burning 
houses, and from wood cut down for cooking purposes, had 
been mistaken for tokens of the fight. 

It was strange to stand outside the walls of the Senate 
whilst legislators were debating inside respecting the best 
means of punishing the rebels and traitors; and to think 
that, amidst the dim horizon of woods which bounded the 
west towards the plains of Manassas, the army of the United 
States was then contending, at least with doubtful fortune, 
against the forces of the desperate and hopeless outlaws 
whose fate these United States senators pretended to hold in 
the hollow of their hands. Nor was it unworthy of note that 
many of the tradespeople along Pennsylvania Avenue, and 
the ladies whom one saw sauntering in the streets, were ex- 
changing significant nods and smiles, and rubbing their hands 
with satisfaction. I entered one shop, where the proprietor 
and his wife ran forward to meet me. " Have you heard the 
news ? Beauregard has knocked them into a cocked hat." 
" Believe me," said the good lady, " it is the finger of the 
Almighty is in it. Didn't he curse the niggers, and why 
should he take their part now with these Yankee Abolitionists, 
against true white men?" "But how do you know this?" 
said I. " Why, it's all true enough, depend upon it, no mat- 
ter how we know it. We've got our underground railway as 
well as the Abolitionists." 

On my way to dinner at the Legation I met the President 
crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, striding like a crane in a bul- 



THE FEELING OF MINISTERS. 429 

rush swamp among the great blocks of marble, dressed in an 
oddly cut suit of gray, with a felt hat on the back of his head, 
wiping his face with a red pocket-handkerchief. He was evi- 
' dcntly in a hurry, on his way to the White House, where I 
believe a telegraph has been established in communication 
with McDowell's head-quarters. I may mention, by the by, 
in illustration of the extreme ignorance and arrogance which 
characterize the low Yankee, that a man in the uniform of a 
colonel said to me to-day, as I was leaving the War Depart- 
ment, " They have just got a telegraph from McDowell. 
Would it not astonish you Britishers to hear that, as our 
General moves on towards the enemy, he trails a telegraph 
wire behind him, just to let them know in Washington which 
foot he is putting first ? " I was imprudent enough to say, " I 
assure you the use of the telegraph is not such a novelty in 
Europe or even in India. When Lord Clyde made his cam- 
paign, the telegraph was laid in his track as fast as he ad- 
vanced." " Oh, well, come now," quoth the Colonel, " that's 
pretty good, that is ; I believe you'll say next, your General 
Clyde and our Benjamin Franklin discovered lightning si- 
multaneously." 

The calm of a' Legation contrasts wonderfully in troubled 
times with the excitement and storm of the world outside. 
M. Mercier perhaps is moved to a vivacious interest in events. 
M. Stoeckl becomes more animated as the time approaches 
when he sees the fulfilment of his prophecies at hand. M. 
Tassara cannot be indifferent to occurrences which bear so di- 
rectly on the future of Spain in Western seas ; but all these 
diplomatists can discuss the most engrossing and portentous 
incidents of political and military life, with a sense of calm 
and indifference which was felt by the gentleman who resented 
being called out of his sleep to get up out of a burning house 
because he was only a lodger. 

There is no Minister of the European Powers in Wash- 
ington who watches with so much interest the march of events 
as Lord Lyons, or who feels as much sympathy perhaps in 
the Federal Government as the constituted Executive of the 
country to which he is accredited ; but in virtue of his posi- 
tion he knows little or nothing officially of what passes around 
him, and may be regarded as a medium for the communication 
of despatches to Mr. Seward, and for the discharge of a great 
deal of most causeless and unmeaning vituperation from the 
conductors of the New York press against England. 



430 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

On ray return to Captain Johnson's lodgings I received a 
note from the head-quarters of the Federals, stating that the 
serious action between the two armies would probably be 
postponed for some days. McDowell's original idea was to 
avoid forcing the enemy's position directly in front, which was 
defended by movable batteries commanding tlie fords over a 
stream called " Bull's Run." He therefore proposed to make 
a deraonsti'ation on some point near the centre of their line, 
and at the same time throw the mass of his force below their 
extreme right, so as to turn it and get possession of the Ma- 
nassas Railway in their rear ; a movement which would sepa- 
rate him, by the by, from his own communications, and ena- 
ble any General worth his salt to make a magnificent counter 
by marching on Washington, only 27 miles away, which he 
could take with the greatest ease, and leave the enemy in the 
rear to march 120 miles to Richmond, if they dared, or to 
make a hasty retreat upon the higher Potomac, and to cross 
into the hostile country of Maryland. 

McDowell, however, has found the country on his left 
densely wooded and difficult. It is as new to him as it was 
to Braddock, when he cut his weary way through forest and 
swamp in this very district to reach, hundreds of miles away, 
the scene of his fatal repulse at F'ort Du Quesne. And so, 
having moved his whole array, McDowell finds himself obliged 
to form u new plan of attack, and, prudently fearful of pushing 
his underdone and over-praised levies into a river in face of 
an enemy, is endeavoring to ascertain with what chance of 
success he can attack and turn their left. 

Whilst he was engaged in a reconnoissance to-da}^. General 
Tyler did one of those things which must be expected from 
ambitious officers, without any fear of punishment, in countries 
where military discipline is scarcely known. Ordered to re- 
connoitre the position of the enemy on the left front, when the 
army moved from Fairfax to Centreville this morning, Gen- 
eral Tyler thrust forward some 3000 or 4000 men of his di- 
vision down to the very banks of " Bull's Run," which was 
said to be thickly wooded, and there brouglit up his men under 
a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, from which they re- 
tired in coni'usion. 

The papers from New York to-night are more than usually 
impudent and amusing. The retreat of the Confederate out- 
posts from Fairfax Court House is represented as a most ex- 
traordinary success ; at best it was an affair of outposts ; but 



EXAGGERATIONS. 431 

one would really think that it was a victory of no small mag- 
nitude. I learn that the Federal troops behaved in a most 
ruflfianly and lawless manner at Fairfax Court House. It is 
but a bad beginning of a campaign for the restoration of the 
Union, to rob, burn, and destroy the property and houses of 
the people in the State of Virginia. The enemy are descritjcd 
as running in all directions, but it is evident they did not in- 
tend to defend the advanced works, which were merely con- 
structed to prevent surprise or cavalry inroads. 

I went to Willard's, wliere the news of the battle, as it was 
called, was eagerly discussed. One little man in front of the 
cigar-stand declared it was all an affair of cavalry. " But 
how could that be among the piney woods and with a river in 
front, major ? " '' Our boys, sir, left their horses, crossed the 
water at a run, and went right away through them with their 
swords and six-shooters." " I tell you what it is, Mr. Russell," 
said a man who followed me out of the crowd and placed his 
hand on ray shoulder, " they were whipped like curs, and they 
ran like curs, and I know it." " How ? " " Well, I'd rather 
be excused telling you." 

July 19</i. — I rose early this morning in order to prepare 
for contingencies and to see off" Captain Johnson, who was 
about to start with despatches for New Yoi-k, containing, no 
doubt, the intelligence that the Federal troops had ad^i^nced 
against the enemy. Yesterday was so hot that officers and 
men on the field suffered from something like sun-stroke. To 
unaccustomed frames to-day the heat felt unsupportable. A 
troop of regular cavalry, riding through the street at an early 
hour, were so exhausted, horse and man, that a runaway cab 
could have bowled them over like ninepins. 

I hastened to General Scott's quarters, which were besieged 
by civilians outside and full of orderlies and officers within. 
Mr. Cobden would be delighted with the repubhcan simplicity 
of the Commander-in-Chief's establishment, though it did not 
strike me as being very cheap at the money on such an occa- 
sion. It consists, in fact, of a small three-storied brick house, 
the parlors on the ground floor being occupied by subordi- 
nates, the small front room on the first floor being appropri- 
ated to General Scott himself, the smaller back-room being 
devoted to his staff, and two rooms up-stairs most probably 
being in possession of waste papers and the guardians of the 
mansion. The walls ai'e covered with maps of the coarsest 
description, and with rough plans and drawings, which afford 



432 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

information and amusement to the orderlies and the stray 
aide-de-camps. " Did you ever hear anything so disgraceful 
in your life as the stories which are going about of the affair 
yesterday ? " said Colonel Cullum. " I assure you it was the 
smallest affair possible, although the story goes that we have 
lost thousands of men. Our total Joss is under ninety — 
killed, wounded, and missing ; and I regret to say nearly one 
third of the whole are under the latter head." " However 
that may be, Colonel," said I, it will be difficult to believe 
your statement after the columns of type wliich appear in the 
papers here." " Oh ! Who minds what they say ? " " You 
will admit, at any rate, tliat the retreat of these undisciplined 
troops from an encounter with the enemy will have a bad ef- 
fect." " Well, I, suppose tliat's likely enough, but it will soon 
be swept away in the excitement of a genei'al advance. Gen- 
eral Scott, having determined to attack the enemy, will not 
halt now, and I am going over to Brigadier McDowell to ex- 
amine the ground and see what is best to be done." On 
leaving the room two officers came out of General Scott's 
apartment ; one of them said, " Why, Colonel, he's not half 
the man I thought him. Well, any way he'll be better there 
than McDowell. If old Scott had legs he's good for a big 
thing yet." 

For hours I went horse-hunting ; but Rothschild himself, 
even the hunting Baron, could not have got a steed. In 
Pennsylvania Avenue the people were standing in the shade 
under the ailanthus trees, speculating on the news brought by 
dusty orderlies, or on the ideas of passing congressmen. A 
party of captured Confederates, on their march to General 
Mansfield's quarters, created intense interest, and I followed 
them to the house, and went up to see the General, whilst the 
prisoners sat down on the pavement and steps outside. Not- 
withstanding his affiictation of calm, and self-possession, Gen- 
eral Mansfield, who was charged with tlie defence of the town, 
was visibly perturbed. " These things, sir," said he, " happen 
in Europe, too. If the capital should fall into the hands of 
the rebels, the United States will be no more destroyed than 
they were when you burned it." From an expression he let 
fall, I inferred he did not very well know what to do with his 
prisoners. " Rebels taken in arms in Europe are generally 
hung or blown away from guns, I believe ; but we are more 
merciful." General Mansfield evidently wished to be spared 
the embarrassment of dealing with prisoners. 



STEVENS'S RAM. 433 

I dined at a restaurant kept by one Boulanger, a French- 
man, who utilized the swarms of flies infesting his premises by 
combining masses of them with his soup and made dishes. 
At an adjoining table were a lanky boy in a lieutenant's uni- 
form, a private soldier, and a man in plain clothes ; and for the 
edification of the two latter the warrior youth was detailing 
the most remarkable stories in the Munchausen style, ear ever 
heard. " Well, sir, I tell you, when his head fell off on the 
ground, his eyes shut and opened twice, and his tongue came 
out with an expression as if he wanted to say something." 
" There were seven balls through my coat, and it was all so 
spiled with blood and powder, I took it off and threw it in the 
road. When the boys were burying the dead, I saw this coat 
on a chaji who had been just smothered by the weight of the 
killed and wounded on the top of him, and I says, ' Boys, give 
me that coat ; it will just do for me with the same rank ; and 
there is no use in putting good cloth on a dead body.' " "And 
how man)' do you suppose was killed, Lieutenant?" "Well, 
sir, it's my honest belief, I tell you, that there was not less 
than 5000 of our boys, and it may be twice as many of the 
enemy, or more ; they were all shot down just like pigeons ; 
you might walk for five rods by the side of the Run, and not 
be able to put your foot on the ground." "The dead was that 
thick ? " " No, but the dead and the wounded together." No 
incredulity in the hearers — all swallowed : possibly disgorged 
into the note-book of a Washington contributor. 

After dinner I walked over with Lieutenant H. Wise, in- 
spected a model of Stevens's ram, which appears to me an. 
utter impossibility in face of the iron-clad embrasured fleet 
now coming up to view, though it is spoken of highly by 
some naval officers and by many politicians. For years their 
papers have been indulging in mysterious volcanic puffs from 
the great centre of nothingness as to this secret and tremen- 
dous war-engine, which was surrounded by walls of all kinds, 
and only to be let out on the world when the Great Republic 
in its might had resolved to sweep everything off the seas. 
And lo ! it is an abortive ram ! Los Gringos went home, and 
I paid a visit to a family whose daughters — bright-eyed, 
pretty, and clever — were seated out on the door-steps amid 
the lightning flashes, one of them, at least, dreaming with 
open eyes of a young artillery-officer then sleeping among his 
guns, probably, in front of Fairfax Court House. 
19 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

Skirmish at Bull's Run — The Crisis in Congress — Dearth of horses 
— War Prices at Washington — Estimate of the effects of Bull's 
Run — Password and Countersign — Transatlantic View of " The 
Times " — Difficulties of a Newspaper Coi-respoudent in the Field. 

July 20th. — The great battle which is to arrest I'ebellion, 
or to make it a power in the hind, is no longer distant or 
doubtful. McDowell has completed his reconnoissance of the 
country in front of the enemy, and General Scott anticipates 
that he will be in possession of Manassas to-morrow night. 
All the statements of officers concur in describing the Con- 
federates as strongly intrenched along the line of Bull Run 
covering the railroad. The New York papers, indeed, au- 
daciously declare that the enemy have fallen back in disorder. 
In the main thorouglifares of the city there is still a scattered 
army of idle soldiers moving through the civil crowd, though 
how they come here no one knows. The officers clustering 
round the hotels, and running in and out of the bar-rooms 
and eating-houses, are still more numerous. When I in- 
quired at the head-quarters who these were, the answer was 
that the majority were skulkers, but that there was no power 
at such a moment to send them back to their regiments or 
punish them. In fact, deducting the reserves, the rear-guards, 
and the scanty garrisons at the earth-works, McDowell will 
not have 25,000 men to undertake his seven days' march 
through a hostile country to the Confederate capital ; and 
yet, strange to say, in the pride and passion of the politicians, 
no doubt is permitted to rise for a moment respecting his com- 
plete success. 

I was desirous of seeing what impression was produced 
upon the Congress of the United States by the crisis which 
was approaching, and drove down to the Senate at noon. 
There was no appearance of popuhir enthusiasm, excitement, 
or emotion among the people in tiie passages. They drank 
their iced water, ate cakes or lozenges, chewed and chatted, 
or dashed at their acquaintances amongst the members, as 



THE EVE OF THE BATTLE. 435 

though nothing more important than a railway bill or a postal 
concession was being debated inside. I entered the Senate, 
and found the House engaged in not listening to Mr. Latham, 
the Senator for California, who was delivering an elaborate 
lecture on the aspect of political affairs from a Republican 
point of view. The senators were, as usual, engaged in 
reading newspapers, writing letters, or in whispered conver- 
sation, whilst the Senator received his applause from the peo- 
ple in the galleries, who were scarcely restrained ft-om stamp- 
ing their feet at the most highly-flown jtassages. Whilst I 
was listening to what is by courtesy called the debate, a mes- 
senger from Centreville, sent in a letter to me, stating that 
General McDowell would advance early in the morning, and 
expected to engage the enemy before noon. At the same 
moment a Senator who had received a despatch left his seat 
and read it to a brother legislator, and the news it contained 
was speedily diffused from one seat to another, and groups 
formed on the edge of the floor eagerly discussing the wel- 
come intelligence. 

The President's hammer again and again caUed them to 
order ; and from out of this knot. Senator Sumner, his face 
lighted with pleasure, came to tell me the good news. " Mc- 
Dowell has carried Bull Run without firing a shot. Seven 
regiments attacked it at the point of the bayonet, and the 
enemy immediately fled. General Scott only gives McDow- 
ell till mid-day to-morrow to be in possession of Manassas." 
Soon afterwards, Mr. Hay, the President's Secretary, appeared 
on the floor to communicate a message to the Senate. I asked 
him if the news was true. " All I can tell you," said he, " is 
that the President has heard nothing at all about it, and that 
General Scott, from whom we have just received a communi- 
cation, is equally ignorant of the reported success." 

Some senators and many congressmen have already gone 
to join McDowell's army, or to follow in its wake, in the hope 
of seeing the Lord deliver the Philistines into his hands. As 
I was leaving the Chamber with Mr. Sumner, a dust-stained, 
toil-worn man, caught the Senator by the arm, and said, " Sen- 
ator, I am one of your constituents. I come from town, 

in Massachusetts, and here are letters from people you know, 
to certify who I am. My poor brother was kilfed yesterday, 
and I want to go out and get his body to send back to the 
old people ; but they won't let me pass without an order." 
And so Mr. Sumner wrote a note to General Scott, and an- 




430 MV DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

other to General Munsfitdd, Vecoinm(^ndiiiij tliat poor Gordon 
Frazer should be permitted to go through the Federal lines 
on his laboi' of love ; and the honest Scolchtnan seemed as 
grateful as if he had already found his brother's body. 
^3^ Every carriage, gig, wagon, and hack has been engiiged by 
peo{)le going out to see the fight. Tlie price is enlwinced by 
mysterious (rommunications respecting the horrible slaughter 
in the skirmishes at Bull's Run. The French cooks and hotel- 
keepers, by soin(; occult i)rocess of reasoning, have arrived at 
the conclusion that they must treble the prices of their wines 
and of the hamjxirs of provisions which llie Washington people 
are ordering to comfort tlicmsclves at tiieir bloody Deiby. 
" There was not less than 18,000 uuiu, sir, killed and destroy- 
ed, t don't care what General Si-ott says to the contrary, 
he was not there. I saw a reliable gentleman, ten miimtos 
ago, as cum straight trom the place, and lie swore there was 
a string of wagons three miles long with the wounded. 
While these Yaidcees lie so, I should not be surprised to hear 
they said they did not lose 1000 men in that big fight the day 
before yestqi'day." 

When tlie newspapers came in fi-om N(;w York, I read 
flaming accounts of the ill-conducted reconnoissunce against 
orders, which was terminated by a most dastai-dly and igno- 
minious retreat, " due," say the New York papers, "to the 
inelliciency and cowardice of some of the oflicers." Far dif- 
ferent was the behavior of the modest chroniclers of these 
scenes, who, as they tell us, " stood their ground as well as 
any of th(;m, in spite of the shot, shell, and rifie-balls that 
whizzed |)ast them for many hours." General Tyler alone, 
perhaps, did mor<!, lor " he was ex[)0sed to the enemy's iire 
for nearly four hours ; " and when we consider that this fire 
came from masked batteries, and that the wind of round shot 
is unusually destructive (in America), we can better ai)[)reci- 
ate the danger to which he was so gallantly inditt'erent. It is 
obvious that in this first encount(!r the Federal troops gained 
no advantage ; and as they were the assailants, their repulse, 
which cannot be kept secret from the rest of the army, will 
have a very damaging etfect on their morale. 

General Johnston, who has been for some days with a con- 
siderable Ibrco* in an entreticluid position at Winciiester, in the 
valley of tlie Shenaiuloaii, had occupied General Scott's atten- 
tion, in conse(iuence ol tin; facility which he possessed to move 
into Maryland by Harper's Ferry, or to fall on the Federals 



PRF.PARATIONS. 437 

by tlio Manassas Gap Railway, wliicli was availabh; by a lotin; 
march from the town he occnpicMl. 0(Mi(-i'al Paitcrson, with 
a Federal corps of" e(iiial sti'englh, liad ain-oi'diiigly been de- 
spatched to attack him, or, at^ all events, to |)r(!V(!nt his leaving 
Winchester withont an action ; but the news to-ni^ht is that 
Pattr;rson, who was an oiliccr of sonit! reputation, has allowed 
Johnston to evacuate Win(diesl(!r, and has not pursued him ; 
so (hat it is impossible to pr(!ilict when; the latter will appear. 

Having failed utterly in my attempts to get a horse, I was 
obliged to negotiate with a livery stable-keeper, who had a 
hooded gig, or tilbury, left on his hands, to which he proposed 
to a(hl a splinter-bar and pole, so as to make it available for 
two horses, on condition that I paid him the assessed value of 
the vehicle and horses, in case (hey wave destroyed by the 
enemy. Of what particular value my executors might have 
regarded the guarantee in que-^tion, the worthy man did not 
inquire, nor did he stipulate for any value to be put upon the 
driver ; but it struck me that, if these were in any way seri- 
ously damaged, the occupants of the vehicle were not likely 
to es(;a[)e. The driver, indtjed, seemed by no means willing 
to undertake the job ; and again and again it was pro[)osed to 
nic that I slioidd di'ivc, but I persistently refused. 

On coniph'ting my barg;iin with the stal)l(;-kee[)er, in which 
it was arranged witli Mr. Wroe that I was to start on the 
following morning early, and return at night before twelve 
o'clock, or j)ay a douljje day, I went over to the Legation, and 
found Lord Lyons in the garden. I went to request that he 
would permit Mr. Warre, one of the aUachfs, to acicompany 
me, as he had ex[)ressed a d(!sire to that effect. Mis Lord- 
ship hesitated at first, thinking jjcrhaps that the American 
papers would turn the circumstance to some base uses, if they 
were made aware of it; but finally he consented, on the dis- 
tinct assurance that I was to be back the following night, and 
would not, under any event, [)roceed onwards with (jrcnerMl 
McDowell's army till after I had retin-ned to Washington. 
On talking the matter ov(!r with Mr. Warre, I resolved that 
the best i)lan would be to start that night if {)Ossible, and pro- 
ceed over the Long Bridge, so as to overtak« the army bcdbre 
it advanced in the early morning. 

It was a lovely moonlight night. As we walked (hroiigh 
th(! street to General Scott's quarters, for the purpose of pro- 
curing a pass, tlu^re was scarcely a soul aV)road ; ami the 
silence which reigned conti'asted strongly with the tunudt 



438 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

prevailing in the daytime. A light glimmered in the Gen- 
eral's parlor ; his aides were seated in tlie veranda outside 
smoking in silence, and one of" tliem handed us the passes 
wliicli he liad promised to })rocure ; but when I told them 
that we intended to cross the Long Bridge that niglit, an 
unforeseen obstacle arose. The guards iiad been specially 
ordered to permit no person to cross between tattoo and day- 
break who was not provided with the countersign ; and witli- 
out the express order of the General, no subordinate officer 
can communicate that countersign to a stranger. " Can you 
not ask the General ? " '' He is lying down asleep, and I dare 
not venture to disturb him." 

As I had all along intended to start before daybreak, this 
contretemps promised to be very embarrassing, and I ventured 
to suggest that General Scott would authorize the countersign 
to be given when he awoke. But the aide-de-camp shook his 
head, and I began to suspect from his manner and from that 
of his comrades that my vjsit to the army was not regarded 
with much favor — a view which was confirmed by one of 
them, who, by the way, was a civilian, for in a few minutes 
he said, " In fact, I would not advise Warre and you to go 
out there at all ; they are a lot of volunteers and recruits, and 
we can't say how they will behave. They may probably have 
to retreat. If I were you I would not be near them." Of 
the five or six officers who sat in the veranda, not one spoke 
confidently or with the briskness which is usual when there is 
a chance of a brush with an enemy. 

As it was impossible to force the point, we had to retire, 
and I went once more to tlie horse dealer's where I inspected 
the vehicle and the quadrupeds destined to draw it. I had 
spied in a stall a likely-looking Kentuckian nag, nearly 
black, light, but strong, and full of fire, with an undertaker's 
tail and something of a mane to match, which the groom 
assured me I could not even look at, as it was bespoke by an 
officer; but after a little strategy I prevailed on the proprietor 
to hire it to me for the day, as well as a boy, who was to ride 
it after the gig till we came to Centreville. My little experi- 
ence in such scenes decided me to secure a saddle horse. I 
knew it would be impossible to see anything of the action from 
a gig ; that the roads would be blocked up by commissariat 
wagons, ammunition reserves, and that in case of anything seri- 
ous taking place, I should be deprived of the chance of par- 
ticipating after the manner of my vocation in the engagement, 



PREPARING FOR ACTION. 439 

and of witnessing its incidents. As it was not incumbent on 
my companion to a,|)pioacii so closely to the scene of action, 
he could proceed in the vehicle to the most convenient point, 
and then walk as far as he liked, and return when he pleased ; 
but from the injuries I had sustained in the Indian campaign, 
I could not walk very far. It was tinally settled that the gig, 
with two horses and the saddle horse ridden by a negro boy, 
should be at my door as soon after daybreak as we could' pass 
the Long Bridge. 

I returned to my lodgings, laid out an old pair of Indian 
boots, cords, a Himalayan suit, an old felt hat, a flask, re- 
volver, and belt. It was very late when I got in, and I relied 
on my German landlady to procure some commissariat stores; 
but she declared the whole extent of her means would only 
furnish some slices of bread, with intercostal layers of stale 
ham and mouldy Bologna sausage. I was forced to be con- 
tent, and got to bed after midnight, and slept, having first ar- 
ranged that in case of my being very late next night a trust- 
worthy Englishman should be sent for, who would carry my 
letters from Washington to Boston in time for the mail which 
leaves on Wednesday. My mind had been so much occupied 
•with the coming event that I slept uneasily, and once or twice 
I started up, fancying I was called. The moon shone in 
through the mosquito curtains of my bed, and just ere day- 
break I was aroused by some noise in the adjoining room, and 
looking out, in a half dreamy state, imagined I saw General 
McDowell standing at the table, on which a candle was burn- 
ing low, so distinctly that I woke up with the words, " Gen- 
eral, is that you ?" Nor did I convince myself it was a dream 
till I had walked into the room. 

July 2\ St. — The calmness and silence of the streets of 
Washington this lovely morning suggested thoughts of the 
very different scenes which, in all probability, were taking 
place at a few miles' distance. One could fancy the hum and 
stir round the Federal bivouacs, as the troops woke up and 
were formed into column of march towards the enemy. I 
much regretted that I was not enabled to take the field with 
General McDowell's army, but my position was surrounded 
with such ditilculties that I could not pursue the course open 
to the correspondents of the American newspapers. On my 
arrival in Washington I addressed an application to Mr. Cam- 
eron, Secretary at War, requesting him to .-auction the issue 
of I'ations and forage from the Commissariat to myself, a ser- 



440 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

vant, and a couple of horses, at the contract prices, or on 
whatever other terms he might think fit, and I liad several in- 
terviews with Mr. Leslie, the obliging and indefatigable chief 
clerk of the War Department, in reference to the matter ; but 
as there was a want of precedents for such' a course, which 
was not all to be wondered at, seeing that no representative 
of an English newspaper had ever been sent to chronicle the 
progress of an American army in the field, no satisfactory re- 
sult could be arrived at, though I had many fair words and 
promises. 

A great outcry had arisen in the North against the course 
and policy of England, and the journal I represented was as- 
sailed on all sides as a Secession organ, favorable to the rebels 
and exceedingly hostile to the Federal government and the 
cause of the Union. Public men in America are alive to the 
inconveniences of attacks by their own press ; and as it was 
quite impossible to gi-ant to the swarms of correspondents fi'ora 
all parts of the Union the permission to draw supplies from the 
public stores, it would have afforded a handle to turn the screw 
upon the War Department, already roundly abused in the most 
influential papers, if Mr. Cameron acceded to me, not merely 
a foreigner, but the correspondent of a foreign journal which, 
was considered the most powerful enemy of the policy of his 
government, privileges which he denied to American citizens, 
representing newspapers which were enthusiastically support- 
ing the cause for which the armies of the North were now in 
the field. 

To these gentlemen indeed, I must here remark, such priv- 
ileges were of little consequence. In every camp they had 
friends who were willing to receive them in their quarters, 
and who earned a woi'd of praise in the local papers for the 
gratification of either their vanity or their laudable ambition 
in their own neighborhood, by the ready service which they 
afforded to the correspondents. They rode Government 
horses, had the use of Government wagons, and through fear, 
favor, or affection, enjoyed facilities to wiuch I had no access. 
I could not expect persons with whom I was unacquainted to 
be equally generous, least of all when by doing so they would 
have incurred popular obloquy and censure ; though many 
officers in the army had expressed in very civil terms the 
pleasure it would give them to see me at their quarters in the 
field. Some days ago I had an interview with Mr. Cameron 
himself, who was profuse enough in promising that he would 



DIFFICULTIES. 441 

do all in his power to further my wishes ; but he had, never- 
theless, neglected sending me the authorization for which I 
had applied. I could scarcely stand a baggage train and com- 
missariat upon my own account, nor could I well participate 
in the system of plunder and appropriation which has marked 
the course of the Federal army so far, devastating and laying 
waste all the country behind it. 

Hence, all I could do was to make a journey to see the 
army on the field, and to return to Washington to write my 
report of its first operation, knowing there would be plenty 
of time to overtake it before it could reach Richmond, when, 
as I hoped, JMr. Cameron would be prepared to accede to 
my request, or some plan had been devised by myself to 
obviate the difliculties wiiich lay in my path. There was no 
entente cordiah exhibited towards me by the members of the 
American press ; nor did they, any more than the generals, 
evince any disposition to help the alien correspondent of the 
" Times," and my only connection with one of their body, the 
young designer, had not, indeed, inspired me with any great 
desire to extend my acquaintance. General McDowell, on 
giving me the most hospitable invitation to his quarters, re- 
frained from offering the assistance which, perhaps, it was not 
in his power to afford ; and I confess, looking at the matter 
calmly, I could scarcely expect that he would, particularly as 
he said, half in jest, half seriously, " I declare I am not quite 
easy at the idea of having your eye on me, for you have seen 
so much of P]uropean armies, you will, very naturally, think 
little of us, generals and all." 



19* 



CHAPTER L. 

To the scene of action — The Confederate camp — Centreville — Ac- 
tion at Bull Kun — Defeat of the Federals — Disoi'derly retreat to 
Centreville — My ride back to Washington. 

Punctual to time, our carriage appeared at the door, witli 
a spare liorse, followed b^^ the black quadruped on which the 
negro boy sat with difficulty, in consequence of its high spirits 
and excessively hard mouth. I swallowed a cup of" tea and 
a morsel of bread, put the remainder of the tea into a bottle, 
got a flask of light Bordeaux, a bottle of water, a paper of 
sandwiches, and having replenished my small flask with 
brandy, stowed them all away in the bottom of the gig ; but 
my friend, who is not accustomed to rise very early in the 
morning, did not make his appearance, and I was obliged to 
send several times to the Legation to quicken his movements. 
Each time I was assured he would be over presently ; but it 
■was not till two hours had elapsed, and when I had just re- 
solved to leave him behind, that he appeared in person, quite 
unprovided with viaticum, so that my slender store had now 
to meet demands of two instead of one. We are off at last. 
The amicus and self find contracted space behind the driver. 
The negro boy, grinning half with pain and " the balance " 
with pleasure, as the Americans say, held on his rampant 
charger, which made continual efforts to leap into the gig, and 
thus through the deserted city we proceeded towards the 
LongJBridge, where a sentry examined our papers, and said 
with a grin, " You'll find plenty of congressmen on before 
you." And then our driver whipped his horses through the 
embankment of Fort Runyon, and dashed off along a country 
road, much cut up with gun and cart-wheels, towards the 
main turnpike. 

The promise of a lovely day, given by the early dawn, was 
likely to be realized to the fullest, and the placid beauty of the 
scenery as we drove through the woods below Arlington, and 
beheld the white buildings shining in the early sunlight, and 



OUT IN VIRGINIA. 443 

the Potomac, like a broad silver ribbon dividing the picture 
breathed of peace. The silence close to the city was un- 
broken. From the T;inie we passed the guard bejond the 
Long Bridge, for several miles, we did not meet a human 
being, except a few soldiers in the neighborhood of the de- 
serted camps, and when we passed beyond the range of 
tents we drove for nearly two hours through a densely- 
wooded, undulating country ; the houses, close to tlie road- 
side, shut up and deserted, window-high in the crops of Indian 
corn, fast ripening for the sickle ; alternate field and forest, 
the latter generally still holding possession of the hollows, 
and, except when the road, deep and filled with loose stones, 
passed over the summit of the ridges, the eye caught on either 
side little but fir-trees and maize, and the deserted wooden 
houses, standing amidst the slave-quarters. 

The residences close to the lines gave signs and tokens that 
tlie Federals had recently visited them. But at the best of 
times the inhabitants could not be very well off. Some of the 
farms were small, the houses tumbling to decay, with un- 
painted roofs and sidewalls, and windows where the want 
of 'glass was supplemented by panes of wood. As we get 
farther into the country the traces of tlie debatable land 
between the two armies vanished, and negroes looked out 
from their quarters, or sickly-looking women and children 
were summoned forth by the rattle of the wheels to see who 
was hurrying to the war. Now and then a white man looked 
out, with an ugly scowl on his face, but the country seemed 
drained of the adult male population, and such of the inliab- 
itants as we saw were neither as comfortably dressed nor as 
healthy-looking as the shambling slaves who shuffled about 
the plantations. Tlie road was so cut up by gun-wheels, 
ammunition and commissariat wagons, that our horses made 
but slow way against the continual draft upon the collar ; but 
at last the <iriver, who had known the country in happier 
times, announced that we liad entered the high-road for Fair- 
fax Court House. Unfortunately my watch had gone down, 
but I guessed it was then a little before nine o'clock. In a 
few minutes afterwards I thought I heard, tiirough the eternal 
clatter and jingle of the old gig, a sound which made me call 
tlie driver to stop. He pulled up, and we listened. In a 
minute or so, the well-known boom of a gun, followed by two 
or three in rapid succession, but at a considerable distance, 
reached my ear. " Did you hear that ? " The driver heard 



444 MY DIAUY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

nothing, nor did nij companion, bnt the bhick boy on the led- 
horse, with eyes stinting out of his head, cried, " I hear thera, 
massa ; I hear them, sure enough, like' de gun in de navy 
yard ; " and as he spoke the tliudding noise, like taps with 
a gentle liand upon a muffled drum, were repeated, which 
were heard botli by Mr. Warre and the driver. " They are 
at it ! We shall be late ! Drive on as fast as you can ! " 
We rattled on still faster, and presently came up to a farm- 
house, wiiere a man and woman, with some negroes beside 
them, were standing out by the hedgerow above us, looking 
up the road in the direction of a cloud of dust, which we 
could see rising above the tops of the trees. We halted 
for a moment. " How long have the guns been going, sir?" 
"Well, ever since early this morning," said he; "they've 
been having a fight. And I do really believe some of our 
poor Union cha|)s have had enough of it already. For here's 
some of thera darned Secessionists marching down to go into 
Alexandry." The driver did not seem altogether content with 
this explanation of the dust in front of us, and presently, when 
a turn of the road brought to view a body of armed men, 
stretching to an interminable distance, with bayonets glittering 
in the sunlight through the clouds of dust, seemed inclined to 
halt or turn back again. A nearer ap[)roach satisfied me they 
were friends, and as soon as we came up with the head of the 
column 1 saw that they could not be engaged in the perform- 
ance of any military duty. The men were marching without 
any resemblance of order, in twos and threes or larger troops. 
Some without arms, carrying great bundles on their backs ; 
others with their coats hung from their firelocks ; many foot- 
sore. They were all talking, and in haste ; many plodding 
along laughing, so I concluded that they could not belong to 
a defeated army, and imagined McDowell was effecting some 
flank movement. " Where are you going to, may I ask ?" 
" If this is the road to Alexandria, we are going there." 
"There is an action going on in front, is there not?" 
" Weil, so we believe, but we have not been fighting." 
Although they were in such good spirits, they were not 
communicative, and we resumed our journey, impeded by the 
straggling troops and by the country cars containing their 
baggage and chairs, and tables and domestic furniture, which 
had never belonged to a regiment in the field. Still they 
came pouring on. I ordereil the driver to stop at a rivulet, 
where a number of men were seated in the shade, drinking 



FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE. 445 

the water and bathing their hands and feet. On getting out 
I asked an officer, " May I beg to know, sir, where your regi- 
ment is going to ? " " Well, I reckon, sir, we are going home 
to Pennsylvania." " This is the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, 
is it not, sir?" "It is so, sir; that's the fact." "I should 
think there is severe fighting going on behind you, judging 
from the firing?" (for every moment the sound of the eaimon 
had been growing more distinct and more heavy). " Well, 
I reckon, sir, there is." I paused tor a moment, not knowing 
what to say, and yet anxious for an explanation ; and the 
e[)auletted gentleman, after a few seconds' awkward iiesitation, 
added, " We are going home because, as you see, the men's 
time's up, sir. We have had three months of this sort of work, 
and that's quite enough of it." Tlie men who were listening 
to the conversation expressed their assent to the noble and 
patriotic utterances of the centurion, and, making him a low 
bow, we resumed our journey. 

It was fully three and a half miles before the last of the 
regiment passed, and then the road presented a more animated 
scene, for white-covered commissariat wagons were visible, 
wending towards the front, and one or two hack carriages, 
laden with civilians, were hastening in the same direction. 
Before the doors of the wooden iarm-liouses the colored people 
were assembled, listening with outstretched necks to the re- 
peated reports of the guns. At one time, as we were descend- 
ing the wooded road, a huge blue dome, agitated by some in- 
ternal convulsion, appeared to bar our progress, and it was 
only after infinite persuasion of rein and whip that the horses 
approached the terrific object, which was an inflated balloon, 
attached to a wagon, and defying the efforts of the men in 
charge to jockey it safely through the trees. 

It must have been about eleven o'clock when we came to 
the first traces of the Confederate camj), in front of P^airfax 
Court House, where they had cut a few trenches and levelled 
the trees across the road, so as to form a rude abatlis ; but the 
works were of a most superficial character, and would scarcely 
have given cover either to the guns, for which embrasures were 
left at the flanks to sweep the road, or to the infantry intended 
to defend them. 

The Confederate force stationed here must have consisted, 
to a considerable extent, of cavalry. The bowers of branches, 
which they had made to shelter their tents, camp-tables, empty 
boxes, and packing-cases, in the debris one usually sees around 



446 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

an encampment, showed they had not been destitute of creature 
comforts. 

Some time Lefore noon the drivei-, uri^ed contimially by ad- 
jurations to get on, whipped his horses into Fairfax Court 
House, a village which derives its name from a large brick 
building, in which the sessions of the county are held. Some 
thirty or forty houses, for the most part detached, with gar- 
dens or small strips of land about them, foTm the main street. 
Tiie inhabitants who remained had by no means an agreeable 
expression of countenance, and did not seem on very good 
terms with the Federal soldiers, who were lounging up and 
down the streets, or standing in the shade of the trees and 
doorways. I asked the sergeant of a ]jicket in the street how 
long the firing had been going on. He replied that it had com- 
menced at half-past seven or eight, and had been increasing 
ever since. " Some of them will lose their eyes and back 
teeth," he added, " before it is over." The driver, pulling up 
at a roadside inn in tlie town, here made the startling announce- 
ment, that both he and his horses must have something to eat, 
and although we would have been happy to join him, seeing 
that we had no breakfast, we could not afford the time, and 
were not displeased when a thin-faced, shrewish woman, in 
black, came out into the veranda, and said she could not let us 
have anything unless we liked to wait till tlie regular dinner 
hour of the house, which was at one o'clock. The horses got 
a bucket of water, which they needed in that broiling sun ; 
and the cannonade, which by this time had increased into a re- 
spectable tumult that gave evidence of a well-sustained action, 
added vigoi' to the driver's arm, and in a mile or two more we 
dashed in to a village of burnt houses, the charred brick chim- 
ney stacks standing amidst the blackened embers being all that 
remained of what once was Germautown. The firing of 
this village was severely censured by General McDowell, who 
probably does not api)reciate the value of such agencies em- 
ployed " by our glorious Union ai'iny (o develop loyal senti- 
ments among the people of Virginia." 

The driver, passing through the town, drove straight on, 
but after some time I fancied the sound of the guns seemed 
dying away towards our left. A big negro came shambling 
along the roadside — the driver stopped and asked him, ''is 
this the road to Centreville ?" " Yes, sir ; right on, sir ; good 
road to Centreville, massa," and so we proceeded, till I be- 
came satisfied I'rom ihe appearance of the road that we had 



A MISTAKE ON THE KOAD. 447 

altogether left the track of the array. At the first cottage we 
halted, and inquired of a Virginian, who came out to look at 
us, whether the road led to Centreville. " You're going l.o 
Centreville, are you ?" " Yes, by the shortest road we can." 
"Well, then — you're going wrong — right away ! Some people 
say tliere's a bend of road leading througli the wood a mile 
fartlier on, but those who have tried it lately have come back 
to Germuntown and don't think it leads to Centreville at 
all." Tliis was very provoking, as the horses were much fa- 
tigued and we had driven several miles out of our way. The 
driver, who was an Pjiiglishman, said, " I think it would be 
best for us to go on and try the road anyhow. There's not 
likely to be any Seceshers about tliere, are there, sir ? " 

" Wliat did you say, sir," inquired the Virginian, with a va- 
cant stare upon liis i'ace. 

" I merely asked whether you think we are likely to meet 
with any Secessionists if we go along that road ? " 

" Secessionists !" repeated the Virginian, slowly pronouncing 
each syllable as if iJondering on the meaning of the word — 
" Secessionists ! Oh no, sir ; I don't believe there's such a 
thing as a Secessionist in the whole of this country." 

Tlie boldness of this assertion, in the very hearing of Beau- 
regard's caimon, completely shook the faitii of our Jehu in any 
intbrination from that source, and we retraced our steps to 
Germantown, and were directed into the proper road by 
some negroes, who were engaged exclianging Confederate 
money at very low rates for Federal copper with a few strag- 
gling soldiers. Tlie faithful Muley Moloch, who had been 
capering in our rear so long, now complained tliat he was very 
much burned, but on further inquiry it was ascertained he 
was merely suffering from the abrading of his skin against 
an English saddle. 

In an hour more we had gained the iiigh road to Centre- 
ville, on which were many buggies, commissariat carts, and 
wagons full of civilians, apd a brisk canter brouglit us iu 
sigbt of a rising ground, over which the road led directly 
through a few houses on eacli side, and dipped out of siglil, 
the slopes of the hill being covered with men, carts, and iiorse.«', 
and the summit crested with spectators, witli their back turned 
towards us, and gazing on the valley beyond. " Tliere's Cen- 
treville," says the driver, and on our poor panting horses were 
forced, passing directly through the Confederate bivouacs, 
commissariat parks, folds of oxen, and two German regiments, 



448 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

with a battery of artillery, halting on the rising-ground by dm 
road-side. The heat was intense. Our driver com])]ained 
(jf hunger and thirst, to which neither I nor my companion 
were insensible; and so pidling up onthiUop of the hill, I sent 
the boy down to the village wliich we had j)assed, to see if he 
could find shelter for the horses, and a morsel for our break- 
fastless selves. 

It was a strange scene; before us. From the hill a densely 
wooded country, doited at intervals with green fields and 
cleared lands, spread five or six miles in front, bounded by a linf 
of blue and pur])le ridges, terniinating abruptly in esear|)ment3 
towards the left front, and swelling gradually towards the rlgiit 
into the lower spines of an offshoot from the Blue Ridge 
JNIountains. On our left the view was circumscribed by a 
forest wiiich clothed the side of the ridge on which we stood, 
and covered its shoulder far down into the plain. A gap in 
the nearest chain of the hills in our front was ])ointed out by 
the by-standers as the Pass of Manassas, by which the railway 
from the West is carried into the jjlain, and still nearer at 
hand, before us, is the junction of that rail with the line from 
Alexandria, and with the railway leading southwards to Rich- 
mond. The intervening space was not a deal level ; undulat- 
ing lines of forest marked the course of the streams which in- 
tersected it, and gave, by their variety of color and shading 
an additional charm to the landscape which, enclosed in a 
framework of blue and purple hills, softened into violet in the 
extreme distance, presented one of the most agreeable displays 
of sim]de pastoral woodland scenery that could be conceived. 

But the sounds which came upon the breeze, and the sights 
which met our eyes, were in terrible variance with the tran- 
quil character of the landscape. The woods far and near 
echoed to the roar of cannon, and thin frayed lines of blue 
smoke marked the spots whence came the muttering sound of 
rolling musketry ; the white pufis of smoke burst high above 
the tree-tops, and the gunners' rings from shell and howitzer 
marked the fire of the artillery. 

Clouds of dust shifted and moved through the forest; and 
through the wavering mists of light-blue smoke, and the thicker 
masses which I'ose commingling from the feet of men and the 
mouths of cannon, I could see the gleam of arms and the 
twinkling of bayonets. 

On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on 
horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the 



SEEING A BATTLE. 449 

fairer, if not j^entler sex. A few officers and some soldiers, 
who had strajighxl from the regiments in reserve, moved about 
among the spectators, and pnitended to explain the movements 
of the troops below, of which they were profoundly ignorant. 

The cannonade and musketry had been exaggerated by the 
distance and by the roUing echoes of tlie hills ; and sweeping 
the position narrowly with my glass from point to point, I 
failed to discover any traces of close encounter or very severe 
fighting. The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an 
opera-glass who was near me, was quite beside herscdC when 
an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood 
— "That is splendid. Oh, my ! Is not that tirst-rate ? I guess 
we will be in Richmond this time to-morrow." These, min- 
gled with coarser exclamations, burst from the politicians who 
had come out to see the triumph of the Union arms. I was 
j)articularly irritated by constant applications for the loan of 
my glass. One broken-down looking soldier observing my 
flask, asked me for a drink, and took a startling pull, which 
left but little between the bottom and utter vacuity. 

" Sti'anger, that's good stuff and no mistake. I have not 
had such a drink since I come South. I feel now as if I'd 
like to whip ten Seceshers." 

From the line of the smoke it a[)peared to me that the 
action was in an oblique line from our left, extending farther 
outwards towards the right, bisected by a road from Centre- 
ville, which descended the hill close at hand and ran right 
across the undulating plain, its course being marked by the 
white covers of the baggage and commissariat wagons as far 
as. a turn of the road, where the trees closed in u|)on them. 
Beyond the right of the cin-ling smoke clouds of dust appeared 
I'rom time to time in the distance, as if bodies of cavalry were 
moving over a sandy plain. 

Notwithstanding all the exultation and boastings of the 
peo|)le at Centreville, I was well convinced no advance of any 
im|)ortance or any great success had been achieved, because 
the ammunition and baggage wagons had never moved, nor 
had tiie reserves received any orders to follow in the line of 
the army. 

Tiie clouds of dust on the right were quite inexplicable. As 
we were looking, my philoso|)hic companion asked me in per- 
fect sei'iousness, '',Are we really seeing a battle now? Are 
they supposed to be fighting where all that smoke is going on? 
This is rather interesting, you know." 



450 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Up came our black boy. " Not find a bit to eat, sir, in all 
the place." We bad, however, my Utile paper of sandwiches, 
and df'scended the hill (o a by-lane off' the village, wliere, 
seated in the shade of the gig, ]\Ir. Warre and myself, divid- 
ing our provision with the driver, wound up a very scanty, but 
much relished, repast with a bottle of tea and half the bottle 
of Bordeaux and water, the remainder being prudently re- 
served at my request for contingent remainders. Leaving 
orders for the saddle-horse, which was eating his tirst meal, to 
be brought up the moment he was ready — I went with Mr. 
Warre to the hill once more and observed that the line had 
not sensibly altered whilst we were away. 

An ICnglish gentleman, who came up flushed and heated 
from the plain, told us that the Federals had been advancing 
steadily, in spite of a stubborn i*esistance, and had behaved 
most gallantly. 

Loud chf^ers suddenly burst from the spectators, as a man 
dressed in the uniform of an officer, whom I had seen riding 
violently across the plain in an open space below, galloped 
along the front, waving his cap and shouting at the top of his 
voice. He was brought up by the press of people round his 
horse close to where I stood. " We've whipj^ed them on all 
points," he cried. " We have taken all their batteries. They 
are retreating as fast as they can, and we are after them." 
Such cheers as rent the welkin ! The congressmen shook 
hands with each other, and cried out, " Bully for us. Bravo ! 
didn't I tell you so." The Germans uttered their martial cheers 
and the Irish hurrahed wildly. At this moment my horse was 
brought up the hill, and I mounted and turned towards the 
road to the front, whilst Mr. Warre and his companion pro- 
ceeded straight down the hill. 

By the time I reached the lane, already mentioned, which 
was in a few minutes, the string of commissariat wagons was 
moving onwards pretty briskly, and I was d(?tained until my 
friends appeared at the roadside. I told Mr. AVarre I was 
going forward to the front as fast as I could, but that I would 
come back, under any circumstances, about an hour before 
dusk, and would go straight to the spot where we had put up 
tlie gig by the road-side, in order to return to Washington. 
Tiien getting into the fields, I pressed my horse, wliich was 
quite recovered from his twenty-seven miles' ride and full of 
spirit and mettle, as fast as I could, making detours here and 
thei'e to get through the ox fences, and by the small streams 



THE RETURN CURRENT. 451 

which cut up the country. The firing did not increase but 
ratlier diminished in volume, tliough it now sounded close at 
hand. 

I had ridden between three and a lialt' and four miles, as 
well as I could judge, when I was obliged to turn for the third 
and fourth time; into the road by a considerable stream, which 
was s|)anned by a bridge, towards which I was threading my 
way, when my attention was attracted by loud shouts in ad- 
vance, and I perceived several wagons coming from the 
direction of the battle-field, the drivers of which were 
endeavoring to force their horses past the ammunition cartg 
going in the contrary direction near the bridge ; a thick cloud 
of dust rose behind them, and running by the side of the wag- 
ons, were a number of men in uniform whom I supposed to 
be the guard. My first im[)ression was that the wagons were 
returning for fresh supplies of ammunition. But every mo- 
ment the crowd increased, drivers and men cried out with the 
most vehement gestures, " Turn back ! Turn back ! We are 
whipped." They seized the heads of the horses and swore at 
the opposing drivers. P^raerging from the crowd a breathless 
man in the uniform of an ollicer with an empty scabbard 
dangling by his side, was cut off by getting between my horse 
and a cart for a moment. " What is the matter, sir ? What 
is all this about?" "Why it means we are pretty badly 
whipped, that's the truth," and continued. 

By this time the confusion had been communicating itself 
through the line of wagons towards the rear, and the drivers 
endeavored to turn round their vehicles in the narrow road, 
which caused the usual amount of imprecations from the men 
and plunging and kicking from the horses. 

The crowd from the front continually increased, the heat, 
the uproar, and the dust w^ere beyond description, and these 
were augmented when some cavalry soldiers, flourishing their 
sabres and {)receded by an officer who cried out, " Make way 
there — make way there for the General," attempted to force a 
covered wagon in which was seated a man with a bloody 
handkerchief round his head through the press. 

I had succeeded in getting across the bridge with great dif- 
ficulty before the wagon came; up, and I saw the crowd on 
the road was still gathering thicker and thicker. Again I 
asked an officer, who was on, foot, with his sword under his 
arm, " What is all this for?" "We are whipped, sir. We 
nre all in retreat. You are all to go back." " Can you tell 



452 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ine where I can find General IMcDowell ? " " No ! nor can 
any one else." 

A few shells could be heard bursting not very far off, but 
there was nothing to account for sucli an extraordinary scene. 
A third officer, however, confirmed tlie report that tlie whole 
array was in retreat, and that the Federals were beaten on all 
points, but there was nothing in this disorder to indicate a 
general rout. All these things took place in a few seconds. I 
got up out of the road into a corn-field, through which men 
were hastily walkiug or running, their faces streaming with 
perspiration, and generally without arms, and worked my way 
for about half a mile or so, as well as I could judge, against 
an increasing stream of fugitives, the ground being strewed 
with coa;s, blankets, firelocks, cooking tins, caps, belts, bayo- 
nets — asking in vain where General McDowell was. 

Again I was compelled by the condition of the fields to 
come into the road ; and having passed a piece of wood and a 
regiment which seemed to be moving back in column of march 
in tolerably good order, I tui-ned once more into an opening 
close to a wJiite house, not far from tlie lane, beyond which 
there was a belt of forest. Two field-pieces unlimbered near 
the house, with panting horses in the rear, were pointed 
towards the front, and along the road beside them there swept 
a tolerably steady column of men mingled with field ambu- 
lances and light baggage carts, back to Centreville. I had just 
stretched out my hand to get a cigar-light from a German gun- 
ner, when the dropping siiots which had been sounding through 
the woods in front of us, suddenly swelled into an animated 
fire. In a few seconds a crowd of men rushed out of the 
wood down toward the guns, and the artillerymen near me 
seized the trail of a piece, and were wheeling it round to fire, 
when an officer or sergeant called out, " Stop ! stop ! They 
are our own men ; " and in two or three minutes the whole 
battalion came sweeping past the guns at the double, and in 
the utmost disorder. Some of the artillerymen dragged the 
horses out of the tumbrils ; and tor a moment the confusion 
was so great I could not understand what had taken place ; 
but a. soldier whom I stopped, said, " We are pursued by their 
cavalry ; they have cut us all to pieces." 

Murat himself would not have dared to move a squadron on 
such ground. However, it could not be doubted tliat some- 
thing serious was taking place ; and at that moment a shell 
burst in front of the house, scattering the soldiers near it, 



RETURN TO CENTREVILLE. 453 

which was followed by another that bounded along the road ; 
and in a few minutes more out came another regiment from 
the wood, almost as broken as the first. Tlie scene on the 
road had now assumed an aspect wliich has not a parallel in 
any description I have ever read. Infantry soldiers on mules 
and draught horses, with the harness clinging to their heels," 
as much frightened as their riders ; negro servants on their 
masters' cliai'gers ; ambulances crowded with unwounded sol- 
diers ; wagons swarming with men who threw out the con- 
tents in the road to make room, grinding through a shouting, 
screaming mass of men on foot, who were literally yelling 
with rage at every halt, and shrieking out, " Here are the 
cavalry! Will you get on?" This portion of the force was 
evidently in discord. 

Tiiere was nothing left for it but to go with the current one 
could not stem. I turned round my horse from the deserted 
guns, and endeavored to find out what had occurred as I rode 
quietly back on the skirts of the crowd. I talked with those 
on all sides of me. Some uttered prodigious nonsense, de- 
scribing batteries tier cfver tier, and ambuscades, and blood 
running knee-deep. Othei's described how their boys had 
carried whole lines of intrenchments, but were beaten back 
for want of reinforcements. The names of many regiments 
were mentioned as being utterly destroyed. Cavalry and 
bayonet charges and masked batteries played prominent parts 
in all the narrations. Some of the olHcers seemed to feel the 
disgrace of defeat ; but the strangest thing was the general 
indiffere'nce with wliich the event seemed to be regarded by 
those who collected their senses as soon as they got out of fire, 
and who said tliey were just going as far as Centreville, and 
would have a big fight to-morrow. 

By this time I was unwillingly appi'oaching Centreville in 
the midst of heat, dust, confusions, imprecations inconceivable. 
On arriving at the place where a small rivulet crossed the 
road, the throng increased still more. The ground over which 
I had passed going out was now covered with arms, clothing 
of all kinds, accoutrements thrown off and left to be trampled 
in the dust under the hoofs of men and horses. The run- 
aways ran along-side the wagons, striving to force themselves 
in among the occupants, who resisted tooth and nail. The 
drivers spurred and whipped and urged the horses to the 
utmost of their bent. I felt an inclination to laugh, which 
was overcome by disgust, and by that vague sense of some- 



454 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

thing extraordinary taking place which is experienced wlien a 
man sees a number of people acting as if driven by some un- 
known terror. As I rode in the crowd with men cHnging to 
the stirrup-leathers, or holding on by anything they could lay 
hands on, so that I had some apprehension of being jiuUed olf, 
I spoke to the men, and asked them over and over again not 
to be in such a hurry. " There's no enemy to pursue you. 
All the cavalry in the world could not get at you." But I 
might as well have talked to the stones. 

For my own part, I wanted to get out of the ruck as fast as 
1 could, for the heat and dust were very distressing, particu- 
larly to a half-starved man. Many of the fugitives were in 
the last stages of exhaustion, and some actually sank down by 
the fences, at the risk of being trampled to death. Above the 
roar of the Hight, which was like the rush of a great river, the 
guns burst forth from time to tiine. 

The road at last became somewhat clearer ; for I had got 
ahead of some of the ammunition train and wagons, and the 
others were dashing up the hill towards Centreville. The 
men's great-coats and blankets had been stowed in the trains ; 
but the fugitives had apparently thrown them out on the road, 
to make room for themselves. Just beyond the stream I saw 
a heap of clothing tumble out of a large covered cart, and cried 
out after the driver, " Stop ! stop ! All the things are tum- 
bling out of the cart." But my zeal was checked by a scoun- 
drel putting his head out, and shouting with a curse, "If you 

try to stop the team, I'll blow your brains out." My 

brains advised me to adopt the prinei})le of non-intervention. 

It never occurred to me that this was a grand debacle. All 
along I believed the mass of (he army was not broken, and 
that all I saw around was the result of confusion created in a 
crude oi'ganization by a forced retreat ; and knowing the re- 
serves were at Centreville and beyond, I said to myself, " Let 
us see how this will be when we get to the hill." I indulged 
in a quiet chuckle, too, at tlie idea of my philosophical friend 
and his stout companion finding themselves suddenly envelop- 
ed in the crowd of fugitives ; but knew they could easily have 
regained their original position on the hill. Trotting along 
briskly through the fields, I arrived at tiie foot of the slope on 
which Centreville stands, and met a German regiment just 
deploying into line very well and steadily — the men in the 
rear companies laugliing, smoking, singing, and jer^ting with 
the fugitives, who were filing i)ast ; but no thought of stopping 



THE RESERVES FORMING. 455 

the vvajjoiis, as the orders repeated from mouth to month 
were lliat they were to fall bac-k beyond C(!ntrcville. 

Tlie air of the men was good. The officers were checn-ful, 
and one big German with a great pipe in iiis bearded mouth, 
with spectacles on nose, amused himself by jiricking the 
liorses with his sabre point, as he passed, to the sore discom- 
fiture i)f the riders. Behinil the regiment came a battery of 
brass lield-pieces, and another regiment in column of march 
Avas following the guns. They were going to form line at the 
end of ilie slope, and no fairer position could well be offered 
for a defensive attitude, although it might be turned. But it 
was getting too late tor the enemy wlierever they were to at- 
ti'inpt such an extensive operation. Several times I had been 
a-ked by officers and men, " Where do you think we will halt ? 
Wiicre are the rest of the army?" I always replied " Cen- 
tre ville," and I had heard hundreds of the fugitives say they 
were going to Centreville. 

I rode up the road, turned into the little street which car- 
ries the road on the right-hand side to Fairftvx Court House 
and the hill, and went straight to the place where I had left 
tlie buggy in a lane on the left of the road beside a small 
house and shed, expecting to find Mr. Warre ready for a start, 
as I had faithfully j)vomised Lord Lyons he should be back 
that night in Washington. The buggy was not there. I 
pulled open the door of the shed in which the horses had 
been sheltered out of the sun. They were gone. "Oh," 
said I, to myself, "/)f course ! What a stupid fellow I am. 
Warre has had the horses put in and taken tlie gig to the top 
of the hill, in order to see the last of it before we go." And 
so I rode over to the ridge ; but arriving there, could see no 
sign of our vehicle far or near. There were two carriages of 
some kind or other still remaining on the hill, and a few spec- 
tators, civilians and military, gazing on the scene below, which 
was softened in the golden rays of the declining sun. The 
smoke wreaths had ceased to curl over the green sheets of 
billowy forest as sea-foam crisping in a gentle breeze breaks 
the lines of the ocean. But far and near yellow and dun- 
colored piles of dust seamed the landscape, leaving behind 
them long trailing clouds of lighter vapors which were dotted 
now and then by white piiflf'-balls from the bursting of shell. 
On the right these clouds were very heavy and seemed to ap- 
proach ra|)idly, and it occurred to me they might be caused 
by an advance of the much spoken-of and little i^nan cavalry ; 



45G MV DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH- 

and remembering tlie cross road from Germantown, it seemed 
a very fine and very feasi!)le operation for the Confederates to 
cut right in on the hne of retreat and communication, in which 
case the fate of the army and of Washington could not be 
dubious. There were now few civilians on the hill, and these 
were thinning away. fSome were gesticulating and explain- 
ing to one another the causes of the retreat, looking very hot 
and red. The confusion among the last poi-tion of the car- 
riages and fugitives on the road, which I had outstripped, had 
been renewed again, and the crowd there presented a remark- 
able and ludicrous aspect through the glass ; but there were 
two strong battalions in good order near the foot of the hill, a 
battery on the sloi)e, another on the top, and a portion of a 
regiment in and about the houses of the village. 

A farewell look at the scene presented no new features. 
Still the clouds of dust moved onwards denser and higher ; 
flashes of arras lighted them up at times; the fields were dotted 
by fugitives, among whom many mounted men were marked 
by their greater speed, and the little flocks of dust rising from 
the horses' feet. 

I put up my glass, and tOrning from the hill, with difficulty 
forced my way through the crowd of vehicles which were mak- 
ing their way towards the main road in the direction of the 
lane, hoping that by some lucky accident I might find the gig 
in waiting for me. But I sought in vain ; a sick soldier who 
was on a stretcher in front of the house near the corner of 
the lane, leaning on his elbow and lookiijg at the stream of 
men and carriages, asked me if I could tell him what they 
were in such a hurry for, and I said they were merely getting 
back to their bivouacs. A man dressed in civilian's clothes 
grinned as I spoke. " I think they'll go farther than that," 
said he ; and then added, " If you're looking for the wagon 
you came in, it's pretty well back to Washington by this time. 
I think I saw you down theere with a nigger and two men." 
" Yes." " They're all off:", gone more than an hour and a half 
ago, I think, and a stout man — I thought was you at first — 
along with them." 

Nothing was left for it but to brace up the gii'ths for a ride 
to the Capitol, for which, hungry and fagged as I was, I felt 
very little intdination. I was trotting quietly down the hill 
road beyond Centreville, when suddenly the guns on the other 
side, or from a battery very near, opened fire, and a fresh out- 
burst of artillery sounded through the woods. In an instant 



THE PANIC ON THE ROAD. 457 

the mass of veliicles and retreating soldiers, teamsters, and 
civilians, as if agonized by an electric shock, quivered through- 
out the tortuous line. With dreadful shouts and cursings, the 
drivers lashed their maddened horses, and leaping from the 
carts, left them to their fate, and ran on foot. Artillerymen 
and foot soldiers, and negroes mounted on gun horses, with 
the chain traces and loose trappings trailing in the dust, spur- 
red and flogged their steeds down the road or by the side 
paths. The firing continued and seemed to approach the hill, 
and at every report the agitated body of horsemen and wag- 
ons was seized, as it were, with a fresh convulsion. 

Once more the dreaded cry, " The cavalry ! cavalry are 
coming ! " rang through the crowd, and looking back to Cen- 
treville I perceived coming down the hill, between me and the 
sky, a number of mounted men, who might at a hasty glance 
be taken for horsemen in the act of sabreing the fugitives. 
In reality they were soldiers and civilians, with, I regret to 
say, some officers among them, who were whipping and strik- 
ing their horses with sticks or whatever else they could lay 
hands on. I called out to the men who were frantic with ter- 
ror beside me, " They are not cavalry at all ; they're your 
own men " — but they did not heed me. A fellow who was 
shouting out, " Run ! run ! " as loud as he could beside me, 
seemed to take delight in creating alarm ; and as he was per- 
fectly collected as far as I could judge, I said, " What on 
earth are you running for? What are you afraid of? " He 
was in the roadside below me, and at once turning on me, and 
exclaiming, " I'm not afraid of you," presented his piece and 
pulled the trigger so instantaneously, that had it gone off I 
could not have swerved from the ball. As the scoundrel de- 
liberately drew up to examine the nipple, I judged it best 
not to give him another chance, and spurred on through the 
crowd, where any man could have shot as many as he pleased 
without interruption. The only conclusion I came to was, 
that he was mad or drunken. When I was passing by the 
line of the bivouacs a battalion of men came tumbling down 
the bank from the field into the road, with fixed bayonets, and 
as some fell in the road and others tumbled on top of them, 
there must have been a few ingloriously wounded. 

I galloped on for a short distance to head the ruck, for I 

could not tell whether this body of infantry intended moving 

back towards Centreville or were coming down the road ; but 

the mounted men galloping furiously past me, with a cry of 

20 



458 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

" Cavaliy ! cavalry ! " on their lips, swept on faster than I did, 
augmenting the alarm and excitement. I came up with two 
officers who were riding more leisurely ; and touching my hat, 
said, " I venture to suggest that these men should be stopped, 
sir. If not, they will alarm the whole of the post and pickets 
on to Washington. They will fly next, and the consequences 
will be most disastrous." One of the two, looking at me for 
a moment, nodded his head without saying a word, spurred his 
horse to full speed, and dashed on in front along the I'oad. 
Following more leisurely I observed the fugitives in front were 
suddenly checked in their speed ; and as I turned my horse 
into the wood by the road side to get on so as to prevent the 
chance of another block-up, I passed several private vehicles, 
in one of which Mr. Kaymond, of the " New York Times," was 
seated with some friends, looking by no means happy. He 
says in his report to his paper, " About a mile this side of 
Centreville a stampede took place amongst the teamsters and 
others, which threw everything into the utmost confusion, and 
inflicted very serious injuries. Mr. Eaton, of Michigan, in 
trying to arrest the flight of some of these men, was shot by 
one of them, the ball taking effect in his hand." He asked 
me, in some anxiety, what I thought would happen. I replied, 
" No doubt McDowell will stand fast at Centreville to-night. 
These are mere runaways, and unless the enemy's cavalry 
succeed in getting through at this road, there is nothing to 
apprehend." 

And I continued through the wood till I got a clear space 
in front on the road, along which a regiment of infantry was 
advancing towards me. They halted ere I came up, and with 
levelled firelocks arrested the men on horses and the carts and 
wagons galloping towards them, and blocked up the road to 
stop their progress. As I tried to edge by on the right of the 
column by the left of the road, a soldier presented his firelock 
at my head from the higher ground on which he stood, for the 
road had a deep trench cut on the side by which I was endeav- 
oring to pass, and sung out, '' Halt ! Stop — or I fire ! " 
The officers in front were waving their swords and shouting 
out, " Don't let a soul pass ! Keep back ! keep back ! " Bow- 
ing to the officer who was near me, I said, " I beg to assure 
you, sir, I am not running away. I am a civilian and a Brit- 
ish subject. I have done my best as I came along to stop tliis 
disgraceful rout. I am in no hurry ; J merely want to get 
back to Washington to-uio;ht. I have been telling them all 



"PASS THAT MAN." 459 

along there are no cavalry near us." The officer to whom I 
was speakhig, young and somewhat excited, kept repeating, 
" Keep back, sir ! keep back ! you must keep back." Again I 
said to him, " I assure you I am not with tiiis crowd ; my pulso 
is as cool as your own." But as he paid no attention to what 
I said, I suddenly bethought me of General Scott's letter, and 
addressing another officer, said, " I am a civilian going to 
Wasliington ; will you be kind enough to look at this pass, 
specially given to me by General Scott." The officer looked 
at it, and handed it to a mounted man, either adjutant or 
colonel, who, having examined it, returned it to me, saying, 
" Oil, yes ! certainly. Pass that man ! " And with a cry of 
" Pass that man ! " along the line, I rode down the trench very 
leisurely, and got out on the road, which was now clear, though 
some fugitives had stolen through the woods on the flanks of 
the column and were in front of me. 

A little further on there was a cart on the right-hand side 
of the road, suirounded by a group of soldiers. I was trotting 
past when a i"espectable- looking man in a semi-military garb, 
coming out from the group, said, in a tone of much doubt and 
distress — ''Can you tell me, sir, for God's sake, where the 
63th New York are ? These men tell me they are all cut to 
pieces." " And so they are," exclaimed one of the fellows, 
who had the number of the regiment on his cap. 

"You hear what they say, sir?" exclaimed the man. 

"I do, but I really cannot tell you where the 69th are." 

" Tm in charge of these mails, and I'll deliver them if I die 
for it ; but is it safe for me to go on ? Y'^ou are a gentleman, 
and I can depend on your word." 

His assistant and himself wei-e in the greatest perplexity of 
mind, but all 1 could say was, "I really can't tell you ; 1 be- 
lieve the army will halt at Centreville to-night, and I think 
you may go on there with the greatest safety, if you can get 
through the crowd." " Faith, then, he can't," exclaimed one 
of the soldiers. 

" Why not ? " " Share, arn't we cut to pieces. Didn't I 
hear the kurnel himsilf saying we was all of us to cut and 
run, evei'y man on his own hook, as well as he could. Stop 
at Cinthreville, indeed ! " 

I bade the mail agent* good evening and rode on, but even 

* I have since met the person referred to, an Englishman hving in 
Washington, and well known at the Legation and elsewhere. JVIr. 
Dawson came to tell me that he had seen a letter in an Americau 



460 MY DIAUY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

in this short colloquy str;i,a;>i"li'i's on foot and on liorsebiu'k, wlio 
had turned the flanks of the rejiimout hy side-paths or through 
the woods, came pouring along the road ono(; more. 

Somewhere about this I was accosted by a stout, elderly 
man, with the air and appearance of a respectable mechanic, 
or small tavern-keeper, who introduced himself as having met 
me at Cairo. lie poured out a Hood of woes on me, how he 
had lost his friend and com[)anion, nearly lost his seat several 
times, was unaccustomed to riding, was sniVering much pain 
from the unusual position and exercise, did nol know the road, 
feared he wouKl never be able to get on, dreaded he might be 
captured and ill-treated if he was known, and such topics as 
u selfish man in a good di'al of pain or fear is likely to indulge 
in. I calmed his apprehensions as well as I could, by saying, 
" 1 had no doubt McDowell would halt and show light at Cen- 
trcville, and be able to advance from it in a day or two to 
renew the light again ; that he couldn't miss the road ; whiskey 
and tallow were good lor abrasions ; " and as 1 was riding very 
slowly, he jogged along, for he was a bur, and would stick, 
with many *' Oh deai's ! Oh ! dear me ! " for most part of 
the way joining me at intervals till I reached Fairfax Court 
House. A body of infantry were under arms in a grove n«ir 

journal, wliicli was cuiiicil oxtonsivelv all over tlio ITnion, in which the 
writi'i'statril he aci'DMipanicil nio on my return to l'\iirt'ax Court House, 
and that the iiicitk'nt I related in my aeeoiuU of l)ull Kun ilid not 
occur, but that he was tiie individual referred to, and could swear 
with his assistant that every word 1 wrote was true. 1 did not need 
any such eorrol>oration tor the satislaetion of any who know me ; and 
I was quite well aware that if one came from the dead to bear testi- 
mony ill n\y favor before the Amerieau journals and public, the evi- 
deiu'e would not eouiitervail tlu' slander of any eharaeterless scribe 
who sought to ijain a moment's notoriety by a tlat coutradictiou of my 
narrative. I may add, that Dawson bej-jied of me not to bring him 

bi'fore the public', "because 1 am now sutler to the th, over in 

Virginia, and they would tlismiss me." " What ! For eertitying to 
the truth?" "You know, sir, it might do me harm." Whilst on 
this subject, let me remark that some time afterwards 1 was in Mr. 
Brady's photogrM]iliie studio iu rennsylvauia Avenue, Washington, 
wlien the very intelligent and obliging manager introduced himself to 
me. and sj-.id that he wished to have an opportunity of repeating to 
nie personally what he had fre(iuenlly told persons in the place, that 
he eould bear the fullest testimony to the t-oiniilete aeeuraey of my ac- 
I'ount of the i>anie I'roui C'entri'ville down the road at the time I let't. 
and that he and his assistants, who were on the spot trying to get away 
their photographii- van and apparatus, couUl certify that my descrip- 
tion fell far short of the disgraceful spectaclo and of tlio excesses of 
tho tlight. 



THE VIRGINIANS. 461 

the Court TTouse, on the right-haml side of the road. The 
door and windows of tlie lioiises presented crowds of laees 
blat'k and wliite ; and men and women stood out upon the 
pori'h, who asked me as I passed, " Have you been at the 
fijiht?" "What are they all running for?" " Are the rest 
of them coming on ? " to which I gave the same replies as 
before. 

Arrived at the little inn where I had halted in the morn- 
ing, I perceived the sharp-faced woman in black standing in 
the veranda with an elderly man, a taller and younger one 
dressed in black, a little girl, and a woman who stood in the 
passage of the door. I asked if I could get anything to eat. 
" Not a morsel ; there's not a bit left in the house, but. you can 
get something, perhaps, if you like to stay till supper-time." 
" Would you oblige me by telling mo where I can get some 
w ater for my horse ? " " Oh, certainly," said the elder man, 
and calling to a negro he directed him to bring a bucket from 
the well or pump, into which the thirsty brute buried its head 
to the eyes. Whilst the horse was drinking, the taller or 
younger man, leaning over the veranda, asked me quietly 
'' What are all the people coming back tor ? — what's set them 
a-runuing towards Alexandria ? " 

"Oh, it's only a fright the drivers of the commissariat 
wagons have had; they are afraid of the enemy's cavalry." 

" Ah ! " said the man, and looking at me narrowly he in- 
quired, after a pause, " Are you an American ? " 

" No, I am not, thank God ; I'm an Englishman." 

" Well then, said he, nodding his head and s[)eaking slowly 
through his teeth ; " there loill be cavalry after them soon 
enough ; there is 20,000 of the best horsemen in the world in 
old Virgiimy." 

Having received full directions from the people at the imi 
for the road to the Long Hridge, which I was most anxious to 
reach instead of going to Alexandria or to Georgetown, I bade 
the Virginian good-evening ; and seeing that my stout friend, 
who had also watered his horse by my advice at the inn, was 
still clinging along-side, I excused myself by saying I must 
})ress on to Washington, and galloped on tor a mile, until I got 
into the cover of a wood, where I dismounted to examine the 
horse's hoofs and shift the saddle for a moment, wipe the sweat 
olf his back, and ni'ike him and myself as comfortable as could 
bi' for our ride into AVashington, which was still seventeen or 
eighteen miles before me. 1 passed groups of men, some on 



462 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

horseback, others on foot, going at a more leisurely rate tow- 
ards the capital ; and as I was smoking my last cigar by the 
side of" the wood, I observed the number had rather increased, 
and that among the retreating stragglers were some men who 
appeai'ed to be wounded. 

The sun had set, but the rising moon was adding every mo- 
ment to the lightness of the road as I mounted once more 
and set out at a long trot for the capital. Presently I was 
overtaken by a wagon with a small escort of cavalry and an 
otiicer riding in front. I had seen the same vehicle once or 
twice along the road, and observed an otiicer seated in it with 
his head bound up with a liandkerchief, looking very pale and 
ghastly. The mounted olficer leading the escort asked me if I 
was going into Washington and knew the road. I told him 
I had never been on it before, but thought I could tind my 
way, "at any rate we'll tind plenty to tell us." That's Colonel 
Hunter inside the carriage, he's shot through the throat and 
jaw, and I want to get him to the doctor's in Washington as 
soon as I can. Have you been to the fight ? " 

" No, sir." 

" A member of Congress, I suppose, sir ? " 

" No sir ; I'm an Englishman." 

" Oh, indeed, sir, then I'm glad you did not see it ; so mean a 
fight, sir, I never saw ; we whipped the cusses and drove them 
before us, and took their batteries and spiked their guns, and got 
right up in among all their dirt works and great batteries and 
forts, driving them before us like sheep, when up more of them 
would get, as if out of the ground, then our hoys would drive 
them again till we were fairly worn out ; they had nothing to 
eat since last night and nothing to drink. I myself have not 
tasted a morsel since two o'clock last night. Well, there we 
were waiting for i-einforcements and expecting McDowell and 
the rest of the army, when whish ! they threw open a whole 
lot of masked batteries on us, and then came down such 
swarms of horsemen on black horses, all black as you never 
saw, and slashed our boys over finely. The colonel was hit, 
and I thought it best to get him otl" as well as I could, before 
it was too late. And, my God ! when they did take to run- 
ning they did it first-rate, I can tell you ; " and so, the otiicer, 
who had evidently taken enough to affect his empty stomach 
and head, chattering about the fight, we trotted on in the moon- 
light : di[)piug down into the valleys on the road, which seem- 
ed like inky lakes in the shadows of the black trees, then 



A NIGHT RIDE. 463 

mounting up ajjain along the white roail, which shone like a 
river in the moonlight — the country silent as death, though 
once as we crossed a small watercourse and the noise of tiie 
carriage- wheels ceased, 1 called the attention of my companions 
to a distant sound, as of a great multitude of peo[)le mingled 
with a faint report of cannon. " Do you hear that ? " " No, 
I don't. But it's our chaps, no doubt. They're coming along 
fine, I can promise you.'' At last some miles further on we 
came to a picket, or main guard, on tiie roadside, who ran for- 
ward, crying out, "What's the news — anything fresh — are 
we whipped ? — is it a fact?" " Well, gentlemen," cxclaim- 
etl the JMajor, reining up lor a moment, " we are knocked in- 
to a cocked hat — licked to h — 1." "Oh, pray, don't say 
that," I exclaimed, "it's not quite so bad; it's only a drawn 
battle, and the troops will occu{)y Centreville to-night, and the 
posts they started from this morning." 

A little further on we met a line of commissariat carts, and 
my excited and rather injudicious military friend appeared to 
take the greatest pleasure in replying to their anxious queries 
tor news, " We are whipped ! Whipped like h — 1." 

At the cross-roads now and then we were perplexed, for no 
one knew the bearings of Washington, though the stars were 
bright enough ; but good fortune favored us and kept us 
straight, ami at a deserted little village, with a solitary church 
on the roailside, I increased my pace, bade good-night and 
good speed to the ollicer,and having kept company with two 
men in a gig tor some time, got at length on the guarded road 
leading towards the ca{>ital, and was stopped by the })ickets, 
patrols, and grand rounds, making i-epi-ated demands tor the 
last accounts from the Held. The houses by the roadside were 
all closed up and in darkness, I knocked in vain at several for 
a drink of water, but was answered only by the angry bark- 
ings of the watch-dogs from the slave quarters. It was a pe- 
culiarity of the road that the people, and soldiers I met, at 
points several miles apart, always insisted that I was twelve 
miles from Washington. Up hills, down valleys, with the 
silent grim woods forever by my side, the white roads and 
the black shadows of men, still I was twelve miles from the 
Long Bridge, but suddenly' I came upon a grand guard under 
arms, who had quite ditl'erent ideas, and who said I was only 
about four mik's from the river ; they crowded round me. 
" Well, man, and how is the fight going ? " I repeated my 
tale. " What doe* he say ? " " Oh, begorra, he says we're not 



464 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. ' 

bet at all ; it's all lies they have been telling us ; we're only 
going back to the oiild lines for the greater convaniency of 
fighting to-morrow again ; that's illigant, hooro ! " 

All by the sides of the oUl camps the men were standing, 
lining the road, and I was obliged to evade many a grasp at 
my bridle by shouting out " Don't stop me ; I've important 
news ; it's all well ! " and still the good horse, refreshed by the 
cool night air, went clattering on, till from the top of the road 
beyond Arlington I caught a sight of the liglits of Washington 
and the white buildings of the Capitol, and of the Executive 
]\Iansion, glittering like snow in the moonlight. At the en- 
trance to the Long Bridge the sentry challenged and asked for 
the countersign. " I have not got it, but I've a pass from 
General Scott." An officer advanced from tiie guard, and on 
reading the pass permitted me to go on witliout difficulty. He 
said, " I have been obliged to let a good many go over to-night 
before you, congressmen and otheivs. I suppose you did not 
expect to be coming back so soon. I fear it's a bad business." 
" Oh, not so bad after all ; I expected to have been back to- 
night before nine o'clock, and crossed over this morning with- 
out the countersign." " Well, I guess," said he, " we don't do 
such quick fighting as that in this country." 

As I crossed the Long Bridge there was scarce a sound to 
dispute the possession of its echoes with my horse's hoofs. The 
poor beast had cairied me nobly and well, and I made up my 
mind to buy him, as I had no doubt he would answer perfectly 
to carry me back in a day or two to McDowell's army by the 
time he had organized it for a new attack upon the enemy's 
position. Little did I conceive the greatness of the defeat, the 
magnitude of the disasters which it had entailed upon the Unit- 
ed States or the interval that would elapse before another army 
set out from the banks of the Potomac onward to Richmond. 
Had I sat down that night to write my letter, quite ignorant at 
the time of the great calamity which had befallen his army, m 
all probability I would have stated that McDowell had received 
a severe repulse, and had fallen back upon Centreville, that a 
disgraceful panic and confusion had attended the retreat of a 
portion of his army, but that the appearance of the reserves 
would probably prevent the enemy taking any advantage of the 
disorder ; and as I would have merely been able to describe 
such incidents as came under my own observation, and would 
have left the American journals to narrate the actual details, 
and the despatches of the American Generals the strategical 



OVER THE LONG BRIDGE. 4^5 

events of the day, I should have led the world at home to be- 
lieve, as, in fact, I believed myself that McDowell's retrograde 
movetncint would be arrested at some point between Centre- 
villeand Fairfix Court House. 

The letter tiiat I was to write occupied my mind whilst I 
was crossing the Long Bridge, gazing at the lights reflected 
in tlie Potomac from the city. TIk; night had become overcast, 
and heavy clouds rising up rapidly oltscur(;d the moon, form- 
ing a most fantastic mass of sliajjes in the sky. 

At the Washington end of the bridge I was challenged 
again by tlie men of a whole i-egiment, who, witli piled arms, 
were halted on the chdussce, smoking, laughing, and sinjjins:. 
" Stranger, have you been to the fight ? " " I have been only 
a little beyond Centreville." But that was quite enough. 
Soldiers, civilians, and women, who seemed to be out unusually 
late, crowded round the horse, and again I told my stereotyped 
story of the unsuccessful attempt to carry the Confederate 
position, and the retr(!at to Centreville to await better luck 
next time. The soldiers along-side me cheered, and those 
next tiiem took it up till it ran through the whole line, and 
nnist have awoke the night owls. 

As 1 passed Willard's Hotel a little furtlujr on, a clock — I 
think the only public clock which strikes the hours in Washing- 
ton — tolhid out th(! hour ; and I su])posed, from what the sentry 
told me, though I did not count the sti'okes, that it was eleven 
o'clock. All the rooms in the hotel were a blaze of light. 
The pav(!ment before the door was crowded, and some mount- 
ed men and the clattering of sabnw on the pavement led me to 
infer that the escort of the wounded oilicer had arrived before 
me. 1 passed on to the livery-stables, where every one was 
alive and stirring. 

" I'm sure," said the man, " I thought I'd never see you nor 
the horse back again. The gig and the other gentlemfTn has 
been back a long time. How did he carry you ? " 

" Oh, pretty well ; what's his price ? " 

"Well, now that I look at him, and to you, it will be 100 
dollars less than I said, I'm in good heart to-night." 

" Why so ? A number of your horses and carriages have 
not come back yet, you tell me." 

" Oh, well, I'll get i)aid for them some time 8r another. 
Oh, such news ! such news ! " said he, rubbing his hands. 
" Twenty thousand of them killed and wounded ! Maybe 
they're not having fits in the White House to-ni-'ht ' " 
20* 



466 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

I walked to my lodging's, and JLi>t as I turned the key in the 
door a flash of light made me pause for a moment, in ex- 
pectation of the report of a gun ; for I could not help thinking 
it quite possible that, somehow or anotlier, the Confederate 
cavalry would try to beat up the lines, but no sound followed. 
It must have been lightning. I walked up-stairs, and saw a 
most welcome supper ready on the table — an enormous piece 
of cheese, a sausage of unknown components, a knuckle-bone 
of ham, and a bottle of a very light wine of France ; but I 
would not have exchanged that repast and have waited half 
an hour for any banquet that Soyer or Careme could have 
prepared at their best. Then, having pulled off my boots, 
bathed my head, trimmed candles, and lighted a pipe, 1 sat 
down to write. I made some feeble sentences, but the pen 
went flying about the paper as if the spirits were playing tricks 
with it. When I screwed up my utmost resolution, the "y's" 
Avould still run into long streaks, and the letters combine most 
curiously, and my eyes closed, and my pen slipped, and just as 
I was aroused from a na[), and settled into a stern determina- 
tion to hold my pen straight, I was interrupted by a messenger 
from Lord Lyons, to inquire whether I had returned, and if 
so, to ask me to go up to the Legation and get something to eat. 
I explained, with my thanks, that I was quite safe, and had 
eaten supper, and learned from the servant that Mr. Warre 
and his companion had arrived about two hours previously. 
I resumed my seat once more, haunted by the memory of the 
Boston mail, which would be closed in a few hours, and I had 
much to tell, although I had not seen the battle. Again and 
again I woke up, but at last the greatest conqueror but death 
overcame me, and with my head on the blotted paper, I fell 
fast asleep. 



CFIAPTER LI. 

A runaway crowd at Washiiigtun — Tlu' uriny of tlio rotoniac in re- 
treat — Mail-ilay — Want of order and authority — Newspaper 
lies — Alarm at Washington — Confederate prisoners — (.Jeneral 
MeClellan — M. Mereier — Kfleets of the defeat on Mr. Seward 
and tiie l^resident — McDowell — General Patterson. 

July 22(f. — T awoke from a deep sleep this morning, about 
six o'clock. Tlie rain was falling in torrents and beat with a 
dull, thudding sound on the leads outside my window ; but, 
louder than all, came a strange sound, as if of the tread of 
men, a confused tramp and splashing, and a murmuring of 
voices. I got up and ran to tiie front room, the windows of 
which looked on the street, and (here, to my intense surprise, 
I saw a steady stream of men covered witli mud, soaked 
through with rain, who were pouring irregularly, without any 
.semblance of order, up Pennsylvania Avenue towards the 
Capitol. A dense stream of vapor rose from the multitude ; 
but looking closely at the men, I pei-ceived they belonged to 
different regiments, New Yoi-kers, Michiganders, Kiiode Isl- 
anders, Massachiisetters, Minnesotians, mingled pellmell to- 
getiier. Many of them were without knapsacks, crossbelts, 
and firelocks. Sonu; had neither great-coats nor shoes, others 
were covered with blankets. Hastily putting on my clotiies, 
I ran down-staii-s and asked an " offic(;r," who was passing by, 
a pale young man, who looked exhausted to death, and who 
bad lost his sword, for the empty sheath dangled at his side, 
where the men were coming from. " Wiiere from ? Well, 
sir, I guess we're all coming out of V(>rginny as fast as we can, 
and pretty well whipped too." " What ! the whole army, 
sir?" " That's more than I know. They may stay that like. 
I know I'm going home. I've had enough of fighting to last 
my lifetime." 

The news seenxed incredible. IJut there, before my eyes, were 
the jaded, dispirited, brok(!n remnants of regiments passing on- 
wards where and lor what 1 knew not, and it was evident enough 



468 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

that the mass of the grand army of the Potomac was placing 
that river between it and the enemy as rapidly as poSsible. 
" Is there any pursuit ? " I asked of several men. Some were 
too surly to reply ; others said, " They're coming as fast as 
they can after us." Others, " T guess they've stopped it now 
— the rain is too much for them." A few said they did not 
know, and looked as if they did not care. And here came 
one of these small crises in which a special correspondent 
would give a good deal for the lea'^t portion of duality in mind 
or body. A few sheets of blotted paper and writing materials 
lying on the table beside the burnt-out candles, reminded me 
that the imperious post-day was running on. " The mail for 
Europe, via Boston, closes at one o'clock, Monday, July 22d," 
stuck up in lai'ge characters, warned me I had not a moment 
to lose. I knew the event would be of the utmost interest in 
England, and that it would be important to tell the truth as 
far as I knew it, leaving the American papers to state their 
own case, that the public might form their own conclusions. 

But then, I felt, how interesting it would be to ride out and 
watch the evacuation of the sacred soil of Virginia, to see 
what the enemy were doing, to examine the situation of atfairs, 
to hear what the men said, and, above all, find out the cause 
of this retreat and headlong confusion, investigate the extent 
of the Federal losses and the condition of the wounded ; in 
fact, to find materials for a dozen of letters. I would fain, 
too, have seen General Scott, and heard his opinions, and 
have visited the leading senators, to get a notion of the way 
in which they looked on this catastrophe. — "I do perceive 
here a divided duty." But the more I reflected on the mat- 
ter the more strongly I became convinced that it would not 
be advisable to postpone the letter, and that the events of the 
21st ought to have precedence of those of the 22d, and so I 
stuck up my usual notice on the door outside of "Mr. Russell 
is out," and resumed my letter. 

Whilst the rain fell, the tramp of feet went steadily on'. 
As I lifted my eyes now and then from the paper, I saw the 
beaten, foot-sore, spongy-looking soldiers, officers, and all the 
debris of the army tiling through mud and rain, and forming 
in crowds in front of the spirit stores. Underneath my room 
is the mag\:dne of Jost, negociant en vins, and he drives a 
roaring tra le this morning, interrupted occasionally by loud 
disputes as to the score. When the lad came in with my 
breakfast he seemed a degree or two lighter in color than 



THE STREETS OF WASHINGTON. 469 

usual. " "What's the matter with you ? " "I 'spects, Massa, 
the Seceshers soon be in here. I'm a free nigger ; I must go, 
par, afore de come cotch me." It is rather pleasant to be 
neutral under such circumstances. 

I speedily satisfied myself I could not finish my letter in 
time for post, and I therefore sent for my respectable English- 
man to go direct to Boston by the train which leaves fhis at 
four o'clock, ^o-morrow morning, so as to catch the mail steamer 
on Wednesday, and telegraphed to the agents there to inform 
them of my intention of doing so. Visitors came knocking 
at the door, and insisted on getting in — military friends who 
wanted to give me their versions of the battle — the attaches 
of legations and others who desired to hear the news and have 
a little gossip ; but I turned a deaf ear doorwards, and they 
went ott" into the outer rain again. 

More draggled, more muddy, and downhearted, and foot- 
weary and vapid, the great army of the Potomac still strag- 
gled by. Towards evening I seized my hat and made off to 
the stable to inquire how the poor horse was. There he stood, 
nearly as fresh as ever, a little tucked up in the ribs, but 
eating heartily, and perfectly sound. A change had come 
over Mr. Wroe's dream of horseflesh. " They'll be going 
cheap now," thought he, and so he said aloud, " If you'd like 
to buy that horse, I'd let you have him a little under what I 
said. Dear ! dear ! it must 'a' been a sight sure-ly to see them 
Yankees running ; you can scarce get through the Avenue 
with them." 

And what Mr. "W. says is quite true. The rain has abated 
a little, and the pavements are densely packed with men in 
uniform, some with, others without ai'ms, on whom the shop- 
keepei's are looking with evident alarm. They seem to be in 
possession of all the spirit-houses. Now and then shots are 
heard down the street or in the distance, and cries and shout- 
ing, as if a scufHe or a diflftculty were occurring. Willard's is 
turned into a barrack for officers, and presents such a scene 
in the hall as could only be witnessed in a city occupied by a 
demoralized army. Tiiere is no provost guard, no pati'ol, no 
authority visible in the streets. General Scott is quite over- 
whelmed by the affair, and is unable to stir. General McDow- 
ell has not yet arrived. The Secretary of War knows not 
what to do, Mr. Lincohi is equally helpless, and Mr. Seward, 
who retains some calmness, is, notwithstanding his military 
rank and military experience, without resource or expedient. 



470 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Th(!rc are a good many troops hanging on about the camps 
and forts on the other side of" the river, it is said ; but they 
are thoroughly disorganized, and will run away if the enemy 
comes in sight without a shot, and then the capital must fall 
at once. Why Beauregard does not come 1 know not, nor 
can I well guess. I have been expecting every hour since 
noon to hear his cannon. Here is a golden opportunity. If 
the Confederates do not grasp that which wil^ never come 
again on such terms, it stamps them with mediocrity. 

The morning papers are quite ignorant of the defeat, or 
affect to be unaware of it, and declare yesterday's battle to 
have been in favor of the Federals generally, the least ai-ro- 
gant staling that McDowell will resume his march from Cen- 
treville immediately. The evening papers, however, seem to 
be more sensible of the real nature of the crisis : it is scarcely 
within the reach of any amount of impertinence or audacious 
assertion to deu}'^ what is passing before their very eyes. The 
grand army of the Potomac is in the streets of Washington, 
instead of being on its way to Richmond. One paper contains 
a statement which would make me uneasy about myself if I 
had any contideiuie in these stories, for it is asserted " that 
Mr. Russell was last seen in the thick of the fight, and has 
not yet returned. Fears are entertained for his safety." 

Towards dark the rain moderated and the noise in the 
streets waxed louder ; all kinds of rumors respecting the ad- 
vance of the enemy, the annihilation of Federal regiments, 
the tremendous losses on both sides, charges of cavalry, storm- 
ings of great intrenchments and stupendous masked batteries, 
and elaborate reports of unparalleled teats of personal valor, 
were circulated under the genial infiuence of excitement, and 
by the quantities of alcohol necessary to keep out the influence 
of the external moisture. I did not hear one expression of 
confidence, or see one cheerful face in all that vast crowd 
which but a few days before constituted an army, and was 
now nothing better than a semi-arn)ed mob. I could see no 
cannon returning, and to my inquiries after them, I got gen- 
erally the answer, " I suppose the Seceshers have got hold of 
them." 

Whilst I was at table several gentlemen who have entree 
called on me, who confirmed my impressions respecting the 
magnitude of the disaster that is so ra})idly developing its pro- 
portions. They agree in describing the army as disorganized. 
Washington is rendered almost untenable, in consequence of 



WHITING AT NICIIT. 471 

the conduct of the army, wliich was not only to liave defended 
it, but to Iiave caiitured the rival capital. Some of my visitors 
declared it was dan<!;erous to move abroad in the strecsts. 
IMauy think the contest is now over; but the genlli'men of 
Wasiiington have Southern sympathies, and I, on the con- 
trary, am persua<led this prick in the great Nortliern balloon 
will let out a quantity of poisonous gas, and rouse the people 
to a sense of the nature of (he coiillict on which they have 
entered. The inmates of th(» Wliite House are in a state of 
the utmost tnipidation, and Mr. Lincoln, who sat in the tcle- 
gra])h operator's room with General Scott and Mr. Seward, 
lislening to the despatches as they arrived from the sceiu! of 
action, Ml it in despair wIumi the fatal words tri|)]>c(l from the 
needle and the defeat was already revealed to him. 

Having (inally cleared my room of visitors and locked the 
door, I sat down once more to my desk, and continued my 
narrative. The night wore on, and the tumult still reigncul in 
the city. Once, indeed, if not twice, my attention was aroused 
by sounds like distant cannon and outbursts of musketry, but 
on reflection 1 was satisfied the Confederate General would 
never be rash (Miough to attack the place by night, and that, 
after all (Ik; rain which had fallen, he in all probai)ility would 
giv(; horses and men a day's rest, marching them through the 
night, so as to appear bel'ore the cily in the course of to-mor- 
row. Again and again I was interrupted by soldiers clamor- 
ing for drink and for money, attracted by the light in my 
windows ; one or two irrepressible and irresistible friends 
actually succeeded in making their way into my room — just 
as on tiie night when I was engagtid in writing an account of 
the last attack on the Redan my hut was stormed by visitors, 
and much of my letter was jxinncd uncUir the a|)preh(!nsioii of 
a sharp pair of spurs fixed in the heels of a jolly little adju- 
tant, who, overcome by fatigue and rum-and-water, fell asleep 
in my chair, with his legs cocked up on my writing-fable — 
but I saw the last of them about midnight, and so continued 
writing till the morninfr lisrht began to steal through the case- 
ment. Then came the trusty messenger, and, at three, A. m., 
when I had handed him the parcel and looked round to see 
all my things were in readiness, lest a rapid toilet might be 
necessary in the morning, with a sigh of relief I plunged into 
bed, and slept. 

Jtili/ 2Sd. — The morning was far advanced when I awoke, 
and hearing (he roll ot wagons ni the street, lat lirst imag- 



472 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ined tlic Federals were actually about to abandon Washington 
itself; but on going to the window, I perceived it arose from 
an irregular train of commissariat carts, country wagons, am- 
bulances, and sutlers' vans, in the centre of the street, the 
paths being crowded as before with soldiers, or rather with 
men in uniform, many of whom seemed as if they had been 
rolling in the mud. Poor General Mansfield was running 
back and forwards between his quarters and the War Depart- 
ment, and in the afternoon some efforts were made to restore 
order, by appointing rendezvous to which the fragments of 
regiments should repair, and by organizing mounted patrols 
to clear the streets. In the middle of the day I went out 
through the streets, and walked down to the Long Bridge with 
the intention of crossing, but it was literally blocked up from 
end to end with a mass of wagons and ambulances full of 
wounded men, whose cries of pain echoed above the shouts of 
the drivers, so that I abandoned the attempt to get across, 
which, indeed, would not have been easy with any comfort, 
owing to the depth of mud in the roads. To-day the aspect 
of Washington is more unseemly and disgraceful, if that were 
possible, than yesterday afternoon. 

As I returned towards my lodgings a scene of greater dis- 
order and violence than usual attracted my attention. A 
body of Confederate prisoners, marching two and two, were 
with difficulty saved by their guard from the murderous as- 
saults of a hooting rabble, composed of civilians and men 
dressed like soldiers, who hurled all kinds of missiles they 
could lay their hands upon over the heads of the guard at. 
their victims, spattering thorn with mud and filthy language. 
It was very gratifying to see the way in which the dastardly 
mob dispersed at the appearance of a squad of mounted men, 
who charged them boldly, and escorted the prisoners to Gen- 
eral Mansfield. They consist<;d of a picket or gi-and guard, 
which, unaware of the retreat of their regiment from Fairfax, 
marched into the Federal lines before the battle. Tlieir just 
indignation was audible enough. One of them, afterwards, 
told General McDowell, who hurried over as soon as he was 
made aware of the disgi-aceful outrages to which they had 
been exposed, " I would have died a hundred deaths before I 
fell into these wretches' hands, if I had known this. Set rae 
free for five minutes, and let any two, or four, of them insult 
me when my hands are loose." 

Soon afterwards a report fiew about that a crowd of soldiers 



GENEEAL M'CLELLAN. 473 

were hanging a Secessionist. A senator rushed to General 
McDowell, and told him that he had seen the man swinging 
with his own eyes. Off went the General, ventre a terre, and 
was considerahly relieved by finding that they were hanging 
merely a dummy or effigy of JefF Davis, not having succeeded 
in getting at the original yesterday. 

Poor McDowell has been swiftly punished for his defeat, or 
rather for the unhappy termination to his advance. As soon 
as the disaster was ascertained beyond doubt, the President 
telegraphed to General McClellan to come and take command 
of his army. It is a commentary full of instruction on the 
military system of the Americans, that they have not a soldier 
who has ever handled a brigade in the field fit for service in 
the North. 

The new commander-in-chief is a brevet-major who has 
been in civil employ on a railway for several years. He 
went once, with two other West Point officers, commissioned 
by Mr. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, to examine 
and report on the operations in the Crimea, who were judi- 
ciously despatched when the war was over, and I used to see 
him and his companions poking about the ruins of the de- 
serted trenches and batteries, mounted on horses furnished by 
the courtesy of British officers, just as they lived in English 
quarters, when they were snubbed and refused an audience 
by the Duke of Malakhoff in the French camp. Major 
McClellan forgot the atfrout, did not even mention it, and 
showed his Christian spirit by praising the allies, and damn- 
ing John Bull with very faint applause, seasoned with lofty 
censure. He was very young, however, at the time, and is so 
well spoken of that his appointment will be popular ; but all 
that he has done to gain such reputation and to earn the con- 
fidence of the government, is to have had some skirmishes 
with bands of Confederates in Western Virginia, in which the 
leader, Garnett, was killed, his " forces " routed, and finally, to 
the number of a thousand, obliged to surrender as prisoners of 
war. That success, however, at such a time is quite enough 
to elevate any man to the highest command. McClellan is 
about thirty-six years of age, was educatc^d at AVest Point, 
where he was junior to McDowell, and a class-fellow of Beau- 
regard. 

I dined with M. Mercier, the French Minister, who has a 
prettily situated house on the heights of Georgetown, about a 
mile and a half from the city. Lord Lyons, Mr. Monson, his 



474 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

private secretary, M. Baroche, son of the French Minister, 
who has been exploiting the Southern States, were the only 
additions to the family circle. The minister is a man in the 
prime of life, of more than moderate ability, with a rapid 
manner and quickness of apprehension. Ever since I first 
met M. Mercier he has expressed his conviction that the North 
never can succeed in conquering the South, or even restoring 
the Union, and that an attempt to do either by armed force 
must end in disaster. He is the more confirmed in his opin- 
ions by the result of Sunday's battle, but the inactivity of the 
Confederates gives rise to the belief that they suffered seriously 
in the affair. M. Baroche has arrived at the conviction, with- 
out reference to the fate of the Federals in their march to 
Richmond, that the Union is utterly gone — as dead as the 
Achaian League. 

Whilst Madame Mercier and her friends are conversing on 
much more agreeable subjects, the men hold a tobacco council 
under the shade of the magnificent trees, and France, Russia, 
and minor powers talk politics. Lord Lyons alone not joining 
in the nicotian controversy. Beneath us flowed the Potomac, 
and on the wooded heights at the other side, the Federal flag 
rose over Foi-t Corcoran and Arlington House, from which the 
grand army had set forth a few days ago to crush rebellion and 
destroy its chiefs. There, sad, anxious, and despairing, Mr. 
Lincoln and Mr. Seward were at that very moment passing 
through the wreck of the army, which, silent as ruin itself, 
took no notice of their presence. 

It had been rumored that the Confederates were advan- 
cing, and the President and the Foreign Minister set out in a 
carriage to see with their own eyes the state of the troops. 
What they beheld filled them with despair. The plateau was 
covered with the men of different regiments, driven by the 
patrols out of the city, or arrested in their flight at the bridges. 
Li Fort Corcoran the men were in utter disorder, threatening 
to murder the officer of regulars who was essaying to get them 
into some state of efficiency to meet the advancing enemy. 
He had menaced one of the officers of the 69th with death for 
flat disobedience to orders ; the men had taken the part of 
their captain ; and the President drove into the work just in 
time to witness the confusion. The soldiers with loud cries 
demanded that the officer should be punished, and the Presi- 
dent asked him why he had used su(!li violent language tow- 
ards his subordinate. " I told him, Mr. President, that if he 



HOW BULT- RUN WAS LOST. 475 

refused to obey my order,'^ I would slioot him on the spot ; and 
I here repeat it, sir, that if I remain in command here, and 
he or any other man refuses to obey my orders, I'll shoot him 
on the spot." 

The firmness of Sherman's language and demeanor in pres- j/^"^^ 
ence of the chief of the State overaw'ed the mutineers, and ^.-— "^ 
they proceeded to put the work in some kind of order to resist 
the enemy. 

INIr. Seward was deeply impressed by the scene, and retired 
with the President to consult as to the best course to pursue, 
in some dejection, but they were rather comforted by the tele- 
grams from all parts of the North, which proved that, though 
disappointed and surprised, the people were not disheartened 
or ready to relinquish the contest. 

The accounts of the battle in the principal joui'nals are curi- 
ously inaccurate and absurd. The writers have now recovered 
themselves. At first they yielded to the pressure of facts and 
to the accounts of their correspondents. They admitted the 
repulse, the losses, the disastrous retreat, the loss of guns, in 
strange contrast to their prophecies and wondrous hyperboles 
about the hyperbolic grand army. Now they set themselves 
to stem the current they have made. Let any one read the 
New York journals for the last week, if he wishes to frame an 
indictment against such journalism as the people delight to 
honor in America. 

July 2Ath. — I rode out before breakfast in company with 
Ml-. Monson across the Long Bridge over to the Arlington 
House. General McDowell was seated at a table under a tree 
in front of his tent, and got out his plans and maps to explain 
the scheme of battle. 

Cast down from his high estate, placed as a subordinate to 
his junior, covered with obloquy and abuse, the American 
General displayed a calm self-possession and perfect amiability 
which could only proceed from a philosophic temperament and 
a consciousness that he would outlive the calumnies of his 
countrymen. He accused nobody ; but it was not difficult to 
perceive he had been sacrificed to the vanity, self-seeking, and 
disobedience of some of his officers, and to radical vices in the 
composition of his army. 

Wlien McDowell found he could not turn the enemy's 
right as he intended, because the country by the Occoquan * 
was unfit for the movements of artillery, or even infantry, he 
reconnoitred the ground towards their left, and formed the 



476 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

project of turning it by a movement which would bring the 
weight of his cohimns on their extreme left, and at the same 
time overlap it, wliilst a strong demonstration was made on 
the ford at Bull Run, where General Tyler brought on the 
serious skirmish of the 18th. In order to carry out this plan, 
he had to debouch his columns from a narrow point at Centre- 
ville, and march them round by various roads to points on the 
upper part of the Run, where it was fordable in all directions, 
intending to turn the enemy's batteries on the lower roads and 
bridges. But although he started them at an early hour, the 
troops moved so slowly the Confederates became aware of 
their design, and were enabled to concentrate considerable 
masses of troops on their left. 

The Federals were not only slow, but disorderly. The reg- 
iments in advance stopped at streams to drink and fill their 
canteens, delaying the regiments in the rear. They wasted 
their provisions, so that many of them were without food at 
noon, when they were exhausted by the heat of the sun, and 
by the stifling vapors of their own dense columns. When 
they at last came into action some divisions were not in their 
places, so that the line of battle was broken ; and those which 
were in their proper position were exposed, without support, 
to the enemy's fire. A delusion of masked batteries pressed 
on their brain. To this was soon added a hallucination about 
cavaliy, which might have been cured, had the Federals pos- 
sessed a few steady squadrons to manoeuvre on their flanks 
and io the intervals of their line. Nevertheless, they advanced 
and encountered the enemy's fire with some spirit ; but the 
Confederates were enabled to move up fresh battalions, and to 
a certain extent to establish an equality between the numbers 
of their own troops and the assailants, whilst they had the advan- 
tages of better cover and ground. An apparition of a disor- 
derly crowd of horsemen in front of the much-boasting Fire 
Zouaves of New York threw them into confusion and flight, 
and a battery which they ought to have protected was taken. 
Another battery was captured by the mistake of an officer, 
who allowed a Confederate regiment to a])proach the guns, 
thinking they were Federal troops, till their first volley de- 
stroyed both horses and gunners. At the critical moment, 
General Johnston, who had escaped from the feeble observa- 
,tion and untenacious grip of General Patterson and his time- 
expired volunteers, and had been hurrying down his troops 
from Winchester by train, threw his fresh battalions on the 



WASHINGTON SAFER. 477 

flank and rear of the Federal right. When the General or- 
dered a retreat, rendered necessary by the failure of the 
attack — disorder spread, whicli increased — the retreat be- 
came a flight, which degenerated — if a flight can degenerate 
— into a panic, the moment the Confederates pressed them 
with a few cavalry and horse artillery. The efforts of the 
Generals to restore order and confidence were futile. Fortu- 
nately a weak reserve was posted at Centreville, and these 
were formed in line on the slope of the hill, whilst McDowell 
and his officers exerted themselves with indifferent success to 
ai'rest the mass of the army, and make them draw up behind 
the reserve, telling the men a bold front was their sole chance 
of safety. At midnight it became evident the morale of the 
army was destroyed, and nothing was left but a speedy retro- 
grade movement, with the few regiments and guns which were 
in a condition approaching to efficiency, upon the defensive 
works of Washington. 

Notwithstanding the reverse of fortune, McDowell did not 
appear willing to admit his estimate of the Southern troops 
was erroneous, or to say " Change armies, and I'll fight the 
battle over again." He still held Mississippians, Alabamians, 
Louisianians, very cheap, and did not see, or would not con- 
fess, the full extent of the calamity which had fallen so heavily 
on him personally. The fact of the evening's inactivity was 
conclusive in his mind that they had a dearly bought success, 
and he looked forward, though in a subordinate capacity, to a 
speedy and glorious revenge. 

July 2bth. — The unfortunate General Patterson, who could 
not keep Johnston from getting away from Winchester, is to 
be dismissed the service — honorably, of course — that is, 
he is to be punished because his men would insist on go- 
ing home in face of the enemy, as soon as their three months 
were up, and that time happened to arrive just as it would be 
desirable to operate against the Confederates. The latter have 
lost their chance. The Senate, the House of Representatives, 
the Cabinet, the President, are all at their ease once more, 
and feel secure in Washington. Up to this moment the Con- 
federates could have taken it with very little trouble. Mary- 
land could have been roused to arms, and Baltimore would 
have declared for them. The triumph of the non-aggression- 
ists, at the head of whom is Mr. Davis, in resisting the de- 
mands of the party which urges an actual invasion of the 
North as the best way of obtaining peace, may prove to be 



478 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

very disastrous. Final material results must have justified 
the occupation of Washington. 

I dined at the Legation, where were Mr. Sumner and some 
English visitors desirous of going South. Lord Lyons gives 
no encouragement to these adventurous persons. 

July 26th. — Whether it is from curiosity to hear what I 
have to say or not, the number of my visitors is augmenting. 
Among them was a man in soldier's uniform, who sauntered 
into my room to borrow " five or ten dollars," on the ground 
that he was a waiter at the Clarendon Hotel when I was stop- 
ping there, and wanted to go North, as his time was up. His 
anecdotes were stupendous. General Meigs and Captain Ma- 
comb, of the United States Engineers, paid me a visit, and 
talked of the disaster very sensibly. The former is an able 
officer, and an accomplished man — the latter, son, I believe, 
of the American general of that name, distinguished in the 
war with Great Britain. I had a long conversation with 
General McDowell, who bears his supersession with admirable 
fortitude, and complains of nothing, except the failure of his 
officers to obey orders, and the hard fate which condemned 
him to lead an army of volunteers — Captain Wright, aide-de- 
camp to General Scott, Lieutenant Wise, of the Navy, and 
many othei'S. The communications received from the North- 
ern States have restored the spirits of all Union men, and not 
a few declare they are glad of the reverse, as the North will 
now be obliged to put forth all its strength. 



CHAPTEE LIT. 

Attack of illness — General McClellan — Reception at the "White 
House — Drunkenness among the Volunteers — Visit from Mr. 
Olmsted — Georgetown — Intense Heat — McClellan and the 
Newspapers — Reception at Mr. Seward's — Alexandria — A 
Storm — Sudden Death of an English Officer — The Maryland 
Club — A Prayer and Fast Day — Financial Difficulties. 

July ^Ith. — So ill to-day from heat, bad smells in the 
house, and fatigue, that I sent for Dr. Miller, a great, fine 
Virginian practitioner, who ordered me powders to be taken 
in " mint-juleps." Now mint-juleps are made of whiskey, 
sugar, ice, very little water, and sprigs of fresh mint, to be 
sucked up after the manner of sherry-cobblers, if so it be 
pleased,- with a straw. 

" A powder every two hours, with a mint-julep. Why, 
that's six a day. Doctor. Won't that be — eh ? — won't that 
be rather intoxicating ? " 

" Well, sir, that depends on the constitution. You'll find 
they will do you no harm, even if the worst takes place." 

Day after day, till the month was over and August had 
come, I passed in a state of powder and julep, which the Vir- 
ginian doctor declared saved my life. The first time I stirred 
out the change which had taken place in the streets was at 
once apparent : no drunken rabblement of armed men, no beg- 
ging soldiers — instead of these were patrols in the streets, 
guards at the corners, and a rigid system of passes. The 
North begin to perceive their magnificent armies are mythi- 
cal, but knowing they have the elements of making one, they 
are setting about the manufacture. Numbei's of tapsters and 
serving men, and canaille from the cities, who now disgrace 
swords and shoulder-straps, are to be dismissed. Round the 
corner, with a kind of staff at his heels and an escort, comes 
Major-General George B. McClellan, the young Napoleon 
(of Western Virginia), the conqueror of Garnett, the captoi 
of Peagrim, the commander-in-chief, under the President, of 
the army of the United States. He is a very squarely-built, 



480 MY DIAPvY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

thick-throated, broad-chested man, under the middle height, 
with sliglitlj bowed h^gs, a tendency {o embonpoint. His head, 
covered witli a closely cut crop of dark auburn hair, is well 
set on his shoulders. His features are regular and prepos- 
sessing — the brow small, contracted, and furrowed ; the eyes 
deep and anxious-looking. A short, thick, reddish mustache 
conceals his mouth ; the rest of his face is clean shaven. He 
has made his father-in-law. Major INIarcy, chief of his staff, 
and is a good deal influenced by his opinions, which are enti- 
tled to some weight, as Major Marcy is a soldier, and has seen 
frontier wars, and is a great traveller. The task of licking 
this army into shape is of Herculean magnitude. Every one, 
however, is willing to do as he bids : the President confides 
in him, and " Georges " him ; the press fawn upon him, the 
people trust him ; he is " the little corporal " of unfought fields 
— omnis ignohis pro mirifico, here. He looks like a stout 
little captain of dragoons, but for his American seat and sad- 
dle. The latter is adapted to a man who cannot ride : if a 
squadron so mounted were to attempt a fence or ditch half of 
them would be ruptured or spilled. The seat is a marvel to 
any European. But McCIellan is nevertheless " tlu; man on 
hoi'seback " just now, and the Americans must ride in his 
saddle, or in anything he likes. 

In the evening of my first day's release from juleps the 
President held a reception Or levee, and I went to the White 
House about nine o'clock, when the rooms were at their fullest. 
The company were arriving on foot, or crammed in hackney 
coaches, and did not affect any neatness of attire or evening 
dress. The doors were 0|)en: any one could walk in who 
chose. Private soldiers, in hodden gray and hobnailed shoes, 
stood timorously chewing on the threshold of the state apart- 
ments, alarmed at the lights and gilding, or, haply, by the 
marabout feathers and finery of a few ladies who were in ball 
costume, till, assured by fellow-citizens there was nothing to 
fear, they plunged into the dreadful revelry. Faces familiar to 
me in tlie magazines of the town were visible in the crowd 
which filled the rece[)tion rooms and the ball-room, in a small 
room off which a military band was stationed. 

The President, in a suit of black, stood near the door of one 
of the rooms near the hall, and sliook hands with every one of 
the crowd, who was then "passed" on by his secretary, if the 
President didn't wish to speak to him. Mr. Lincoln has recov- 
ered his spirits, and seemed in good humor. Mrs. Lincoln, 



OVATIONS FOR BULL RUN. 481 

who did the honors in another room, surrounded by a few la- 
dies, did not appear to be quite vSo eontented. All the Ministers 
are present except Mr. Seward, who has gone to his own State 
lo ascertain the frame of mind of the people, and to judge for 
himself of the sentiments they entertain respecting the war. 
After walking up and down the hot and crowded rooms for an 
hour, and seeing and speaking to all the celebrities. I withdrew. 
Colonel Rieliardson in his official report states Colonel Miles 
lost tiie baltle of Bull Run by being drunk and disordt^rly at a 
critical moment. Colonel Miles, who commanded a division of 
tlu-ee brigades, writes to say he was not in any su(!li state, and 
has demanded a court of inquiry. In a Phihulelphia paper it 
is stated McDowidl was helplessly drunk during the action, and 
sat up all the night before drinking, smoking, and playing 
cards. INIcDowell nev(a- drinks, and never has drunk, wine, 
spirits, malt, tea, or cotfee, or smoked or used tobacco in any 
form, nor does he play cards; and that remark does not apply 
to many other Federal ollicers. 

Drunkenness is only too common among the American vol- 
unteers, and General Butler has put it officially in orders, that 
" the use of intoxicating liquors prevails to an alarming extent 
among the otUcers of his command," and has ordered the seiz- 
ure of their grog, which will only be allowed on medical certif- 
icate. He announces, too, that he will not use wine or spirits, 
or give any to his friends, or allow any in his own quarters iu 
future — a quaint, vigorous creature, this Massachusetts law- 
yer. 

The outcry against Patterson has not yet subsided, though 
he states that, out of twenty-three regiments composing his 
force, nineteen refused to stay an hour over their time, which 
would have been up in a week, so that he would have been left 
ill an enemy's country with four regiments. He wisely led his 
patriot band back, and let them disband themselves in their 
own borders. Verily, these are not the men to conquer the 
South. 

Fresh volunteers are pouring in by tens of thousands to 
take their places from all parts of the Union, and in three days 
after the battle, 80,000 men were accepted. Strange people ! 
The regiments which have returned to New York aft er dis- 
graceful conduct at Bull llun, with the stigmata of cowardice 
impressed by their commanding officers on the colors and souls 
of their corps, are actually welcomed with the utmost enthu- 
siasm, and receive p'opular ovations ! It becomes obvious 
21 



482 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

every day that McClellan does not intend to advance till he has 
got some semblance of an army : that will be a long time to 
come ; but he can get a good deal of fighting out of them in a 
few months. Meantime the whole of the Northern States are 
waiting anxiously for the advance which is to take place at 
once, according to promises from New York. As Washington 
is the principal scene of interest, the South being tabooed to 
me, J have resolved to stay here till the army is fit to move, 
making little excursions to points of interest. The details in 
my diary are not very interesting, and I shall make but brief 
extracts. 

August 2d. — Mr. Olmsted visited me, in company with a 
young gentleman named Ritchie, son-in-law of James Wads- 
worth, who has been serving as honorary aide-de-camp on 
McDowell's staff, but is now called to higher functions. They 
dined at my lodgings, and we talked over Bull Run again. 
Mr. Ritchie did not leave Centreville till late in the evening, 
and slept at P^'airfax Court House, where he remained till 8-30, 
A. M., on the morning of July 22d, Wadsworth not stirring for 
two hours later. He said the panic was " horrible, disgusting, 
sickening," and spoke in the harshest terms of the officers, to 
whom he applied a variety of epithets. Prince Napoleon has 
arrived. 

August 3d. — McClellan orders I'egular parades and drills 
in every regiment, and insists on all orders being given by 
bugle note. I had a long ride through the camps, and saw 
some improvement in the look of the men. Coming home by 
Georgetown, met the Prince driving with M. Mercier, to pay 
a visit to the President. I am sure that the politicians are 
not quite well pleased with this arrival, because they do not 
understand it, and cannot imagine a man would come so fai 
without a purpose. The drunken soldiers now resort to quiet 
lanes and courts in the suburbs. Georgetown was full of them. 
It is a much more respectable and old-world looking place 
than its vulgar, empty, overgrown, mushroom neighbor, Wash- 
ington. An officer who had fallen in his men to go on duty 
was walking down the line this evening when his eye rested 
on the neck of a bottle sticking out of a man's coat. " Thun- 
der," quoth he, "James, what have you got there ? " " Well, 
I guess, Captain, it's a drop of real good Bourbon." " Then 
let us have a drink," said the captain ; and thereupon pro- 
ceeded to take a long pull and a strong pull, till the man cried 
out, " That is not fair, Captain. You won't leave me a drop " 



MILITARY ADVENTURERS. 483 

— a remonstrance which had a proper effect, and the captain 
marched down his company to the bridge- 
It was extremely hot when I returned, late in the evening. 
I asked the boy for a glass of iced water. '' Dere is no ice, 
Massa," he said. " No ice ? What's the reason of that ? " 
" De Sechessers, Massa, block up de river, and touch off deir 
guns at de ice-boats." The Confederates on the right bank of 
the Potomac have now established a close blockade of the river. 
Lieutenant Wise, of the Navy Department, admitted the fact, 
but said that the United States gunboats would soon sweep the 
rebels I'rom the shore. 

August ith. — 1 had no idea that the sun could be powerful 
in Washington ; even in India the heat is not much more op- 
pressive than it was here to-day. There is this extenuating 
circumstance, however, that after some hours of such very high 
temperature, thunder-storms and tornadoes cool the air. I re- 
ceived a message from General McClellan, that he was about 
to ride along the lines of the army across the river, and would 
be happy if I accompanied him ; but as I had many letters to 
write for the next mail, I was unwillingly obliged to abandon 
the chance of seeing the array under such favorable circum- 
stances. Tliere are daily arrivals at Washington of military 
adventurers from all parts of the world, some of them with 
many extraordinary certiticates and qualitications ; but, as Mr. 
Seward says, "It is best to detain them with the hope of em- 
ployment on the Northern sid(3, lest some legally good man 
should get among the rebels." Garibaldians, Hungarians, 
Poles, officers of Turkish and other contingents, the executory 
devises and remainders of Euroi)ean revolutions and wars, sur- 
round the State Department, and infest unsuspecting politicians 
with illegible testimonials in unknown tongues. 

August oth. — The roads from the station are crowded with 
troops, coming from the North as fast as the railway can car- 
ry them. It is evident, as the war fever spreads, that such 
politicians, as Mr. Crittenden, who resist the extreme violence 
of the Republican party, will be stricken down. The Confis- 
cation Bill, for the emancipation of slaves and the absorption 
of property belonging to rebcds, has, indeed, been boldly re- 
sisted in the House of Representatives ; but it passed with 
some tritliug amendments. The journals are 'still busy with 
the affair of Bull Run, and each seems anxious to eclij)se the 
other in the absurdity of its statements. A Philadelphia jour- 
nal, for instance, states *to-day that the real cause of the disas- 



484 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ter was not a desire to retreat, but a mania to advance. In 
its own words, " the only drawback was the impetuous feeUng 
to go ahead and fight. Because one officer is accused of 
drunkenness a great movement is on foot to prevent the army 
getting any drink at all. 

General McClellan invited the newspaper correspondents in 
Washington to meet him tq-day, and with their assent drew up 
a treaty of peace and amity, which is a curiosity in its way. 
In the first place, the editors are to abstain from printing any- 
thing which can give aid or comfoi't to the enemy, and their 
correspondents are to observe equal caution ; in return for 
which complaisance, Government is to be asked to give the 
press opportunities for obtaining and transmitting intelligence 
suitable for publication, particularly touching engagements 
witli tlie enemy. The Confederate privateer Sumter has 
forced the blockade at New Orleans, and has already been 
heard ol destroying a number of Union vessels. 

Auytist. 6th. — Prince Na|)oleon, anxious to visit the battle- 
field at Bull Run, has, to Mr. Seward's discomfiture, applied 
for passes, and arrangements are being made to escort him as 
far as the Confederate lines. This is a recognition of the 
Confederates, as a belligerent power, which is by no means 
agreeable to the authorities. I drove down to the Senate, 
where the proceedings were very uninteresting, although Con- 
gress was on the eve of adjournment, and returning visited 
Mr. Seward, Mr. Bates, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Blair, and left 
cards for Mr. Breckinridge. The old woman who opened the 
door at the house where tiie latter lodged said, " Massa Breck- 
inridge pack up all his boxes ; I s'pose he not cum back here 
again." 

August 1th. — In the evening I went to INIr. Seward's, who 
gave a reception in honor of Prince Napoleon. Tlie Minis- 
ter's rooms were crowded and intensely hot. Lord Lyons 
and mo.-t of tlie dii)lomatic circle were present. The Prince 
wore his Order of the Batli, and bore the onslaughts of poli- 
ticians, male and female, with much good-humor. The con- 
trast between the uniforms of the officers of the United States 
army and navy and those of the French in tlie Prince's suit, 
by no means redounded to the credit of the military tailoring 
of the Americans. The Prince, to whom I was presented by 
Mr. Seward, asked me particularly about the roads from Alex- 
andria to Fairfax Court House, and from there to Centreville 
and Manassas. I told him I had not got quite as far as the 



VISIT TO THE HOSPITALS. 485 

latter place, at which he laughed. He inquired with much 
interest about General Beauregard, whether he spoke good 
French, if he seemed a man of capacity, or was the creation 
of an accident and of circumstances. He has been to Mount 
Vernon, and is struck with the air of neglect around the 
place. Two of his horses dropped dead from the heat on the 
journey, and the Prince, who was perspiring profusely in the 
crowded room, asked me whether the climate was not as bad 
as midsummer in India. His manner was perfectly easy, but 
he gave no encouragement to bores, nor did he court popular- 
ity by unusual affability, and he moved off long before the 
guests were tired of looking at him. On returning to my 
rooms a German gentleman named Bing — who went out 
with the Federal army from Washington, was taken prisoner 
at Bull Run, and carried to Richmond — came to visit me, 
but his account of what he saw in the dark and mysterious 
South was not lucid or interesting. 

August Sth. — I had arranged to go with Mr. Olmsted and 
Mr. Ritchie to visit the hospitals, but the heat was so intoler- 
able, we abandoned the idea till afternoon, when we drove 
across the Long Bridge and proceeded to Alexandria. The 
town, which is now fully occupied by military, and is aban- 
doned by the respectable inhabitants, has an air, owing to tlie 
absence of women and children, which tells the tale of a hos- 
tile Occupation. In a large building, which had once been a 
school, the wounded of Bull Run were lying, not uncomfort- 
ably packed, nor unskili'ully cared for, and the arrangements 
were, taken altogether, creditable to the skill and humanity of 
the surgeons. Close at hand was the church in which George 
Washington was wont in latter days to pray, when he drove 
over from Mount Vernon — further on, Marshall House, vvhere 
Ellsworth was shot by the Virginian landlord, and was so 
speedily avenged. A strange strain of thought was suggested, 
by the rapid grouping of incongruous ideas, arising out of the 
proximity of these scenes. As one of my friends said, " I 
wonder what Washington would do if he were here now — 
and how he would act if he were summoned from that church 
to JMarshall House or to this hospital?" The man who ut- 
tered these words was not either of my companions, but wore 
the shoulder-straps of a Union officer. "Stranger still," said 
I, " would it be to speculate on the thoughts and actions of 
Napoleon in this crisis, if he were to wake up and see a Prince 
of his blood escorted by Federal soldiers to the spot whei'e 



486 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the troops of the Southern States had inflicted on them a sig- 
nal defeat, in a land where the nephew who now vsits on the 
throne of France has been an exile." It is not quite certain 
that many Americans understand who Prince Napoleon is, for 
one of the troopers belonging to the escort which took him 
out from Alexandria declared positively he had ridden with 
the Empt'ror. The excursion is swallowed, but not well-di- 
gested. In Washington the only news to-night is, that a small 
privateer from Charleston, mistaking the St. Lawrence for a 
merchant vessel, fired into her, and was at once sent to Mv. 
Davy Jones by a rattling broadside. Congress having ad- 
journed, there is but little to render Washington less uninter- 
esting than it must be in its normal state. 

The truculent and overbearing spirit which arises from the 
uncontroverted action of democratic majorities develops itself 
in the North, where they have taken to burning newspaper 
offices and destroying all the property belonging to the pro- 
prietors and editors. These actions are a strange commen- 
tary on Mr. Seward's declaration " that no volunteers are to 
be refused because they do not speak English, inasmuch as 
the contest for the Union is a battle of the freemen of the 
world for the institutions of self-government." 

August llth. — On the old Indian principle, I rode out this 
morning very early, and was rewarded by a breath of cold, 
fresh air, and by the sight of some very disorderly regiments 
just turning out to parade in the camps ; but I was not par- 
ticularly gratified by being mistaken for Prince Napoleon by 
some Irish recruits, who shouted out, " Bonaparte forever," 
and gradually subsided into requests for " soraetliing to drink 
your Royal Highness's health with." As I returned I saw 
on the steps of General Manslield's quarters, a tall, soldierly- 
looking young man, whose breast was covered vvitli Crimean 
ribbons and medals, and I recognized him as one wiio had 
called upon me a few days before, renewing our slight ac- 
quaintance before Sebastopol, where his courage was con- 
spicuous, to ask me tor information respecting the mode of 
ol)taining a commission in the Federal army. 

Towai'ds mid-day an ebony sheet of clouds swept over the 
city. I went out, regardless of the threatening storm, to avail 
myself of the coolness to make a few visits ; but soon a vio- 
lent wind arose bearing clouds like those of an Indian dust- 
storm down the streets. The black sheet overheail became 
agitated like the sea, and tossed about gray clouds, which 



DEATH OF A CRIMEAN. 487 

^jareered against eaoh othor and burst into lightning; then 
suddenly, without other warning, down came the rain — a 
perfect tornado ; sheets of water flooding the streets in a mo- 
ment, turning the bed into watercourses and the channels into 
deep rivers. I waded up tlie centre of Pennsylvania Avenue, 
past the President's house, in a current which would have 
made a respectable trout-stream ; and on getting opposite my 
own door, made a rush for the porch, but forgelting the deep 
chaiHiel at the side, stepped into a rivulet wliich was literally 
above my hips, and I was carried otf my legs, till I succeeded 
in catching the curbstone, and escaped into the hall as if I 
had just swam across the Potomac. 

On returning from my ride next morning, I took up the Bal- 
timore pa|)er, and saw a paragraph announcing the death of 
an English oHicer at the station ; it was the poor fellow whom 
I saw sitting at General Mansfield's steps yesterday. The 
consul was absent on a short tour rendered necessary by the 
failure of his health consequent on the discharge of his duties. 
Finding the Legation were anxious to see due care taken of 
the poor fellow's remains, I left for Baltimore at a quarter to 
three o'clock, and proceeded to inquire into the circumstances 
connected with his death. He had been struck down at the 
station by some cerebral attack, brought on by the heat and 
excitement ; had been carried to the police station and placed 
upon a bench, from which he had fallen with his head down- 
wards, and was found in that position, with life quite extinct, 
by a casual visitor. My astonishment may be conceived when 
1 learned that not only had the Coroner's inquest sat and re- 
turned its verdict, but that the man had absolutely been buried 
the same morning, and so my mission was over, and I could 
only report what had occurred to Washington. Little value 
indeed has human life in this new world, to which the old 
gives vital power so lavishly, that it is regarded as almost 
worthless. I have* seen more " fuss " made over an old wom- 
an killed by a cab in London than there is over half a dozen 
deaths with suspicion of murder attached in New Orleans or 
New York. 

I lemained in Baltimore a few days, and had an opportu- 
nity of knowing the feelings of some of the leading men in 
the place. It may be described in one word — intense hatred 
of New England and Black Republicans, which has been in- 
creased to mania by tiie stringent measures of the military 
dictator of the American Warsaw, the seai'ches of private 



488 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

houses, domiciliary visits, arbitrary arrests, the suppression of 
adverse journals, the overthrow of the corporate body — all 
the acts, in fact, which constitute the machinery and the griev- 
ances of a tyranny. When I spoke of the brutal indiiference 
of the police to the poor officer previously mentioned, the Bal- 
tiraoreans told me the constables appointed by the Federal 
general were scoundrels who led the Plug Uglies in former 
days, — the worst characters in a city not sweet or savory in 
repute, — but that the old police were men of very different 
description. The Maryland Club, where I had spent some 
pleasant hours, was now like a secret tribunal or the haunt of 
conspirators. The police entered it a few days ago, searched 
every room, took up the flooring, and even turned up the coals 
in the kitchen and the wine in the cellar. Such indignities 
fired the blood of the members, who are, with one exception, 
opposed to the attempt to coerce the South by the sword. 
Not one of them but could tell of some outrage perpetrated 
on himself or on some members of his family by the police 
and Federal authority. Many a delator amici was suspected 
but not convicted. Men sat moodily reading the papers with 
knitted brows, or whispering in corners, taking each other 
apart, and glancing suspiciously at their fellows. 

There is a peculiar stamp about the Baltimore men which 
distinguishes them from most Americans — a style of dress, 
frankness of manner, and a general appearance assimilating 
them closely to the upper classes of pjuglishmen. They are 
fond of sport and travel, exclusive and high-spirited, and the 
iron rule of the Yankee is the more intolerable because they 
dare not resent it, and are unable to shake it off. 

I returned to Washington on 15th August. Nothing 
changed ; skirmishes along the front ; McClellan reviewing. 
The loss of General Lyon, who was killed in an action with 
the Confederates under Ben McCuUough, at Wilson's Creek, 
Springfield, Missouri, in which the Unionists were with diffi- 
culty extricated by General Sigel from a very dangerous posi- 
tion, after the death of their leader, is severely felt. He was 
one of the very few officers who combined military skill and 
personal bravery with political sagacity and moral firmness. 
The President has issued his proclamation for a day of fast 
and prayer, which, say the Baltimoreans, is a sign that the 
Yankees are in a bad vvay, as they would never think of pray- 
ing or fasting if their cause was prospering. The stories 
which have been so sedulously spread, and which never will 



MR. SEWARD ON THE WAR. 489 

be quite discredited, of the barbarity and cruelty of the Con- 
federates to all the wounded, ought to be set at rest by the 
printed statement of the eleven Union surgeons just released, 
who have come back from Richmond, where tliey were sent 
after their capture on the field of Bull Rim, with the most 
distinct testimony that the Confederates treated their prisoners 
with humanity. Who are the miscreants who tried to make 
the evil feeling, quite strong enough as it is, perfectly fiendish, 
by asserting the rebels burned the wounded in hospitals, and 
bayoneted them as they lay helpless on the field ? 

The pecuniary difficulties of the Government have been 
alleviated by the bankers of New York, Philadelphia, and 
Boston, who have agreed to lend them fifty millions of dollars, 
on condition that they receive the Treasury notes which Mr. 
Chase is about to issue. As we read the papers and hear the 
news, it is difficult to believe that the foundations of society 
are not melting away in the heat of this conflict. Thus, a 
Federal judge, named Garrison, who has issued Iiis writ of 
habeas corpus for certain prisoners in Fort Lafiiyette, being 
quietly snuffed out by the commandant. Colonel Burke, desires 
to lead an army against the fort, and have a little civil war of 
his own in New York. He applies to the commander of the 
county militia, who informs Garrison he can't get into the fort 
as there was no artillery strong enough to breach the walls, 
and that it would require 10,000 men to invest it, whereas 
only 1400 militiamen were available. What a farceur Judge 
Garrison must be ! In addition to the gutting and burning of 
newspaper offices, and the exercitation of the editors on rails, 
the Republican grand juries have taken to indicting the Demo- 
cratic journals, and Fremont's provost marshal in St. Louis 
has, proprio motu suppressed those which he considei-s disaf- 
fected. A mutiny \yhich broke out in the Scotch Regiment, 
Seventy-Ninth N. Y., has been followed by another in the 
Second Maine Regiment, and a display of cannon and of cav- 
alry was required to induce them to allow the ringleaders to 
he arrested. The President was greatly alarmed, but McClel- 
lan iu'ted with some vigor, and the refractor}' vohmteers are to 
be sent olf to a pleasant station failed the "■ Dry Tortugas" to 
work on the tbrtifications. 

Mr. Seward, with wiiom I dined and spent the evening on 

the 16th August, has been much reassured and comforted 

by the demonstrations of readiness on the part of the people 

to continue the contest, and of confidence in the cause among 

21* 



490 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the moneyed men of the j^reat cities. " All we want is time to 
develop our strength. We have been blamed for not mak- 
ing greater use of our navy and extending it at once. It was 
our first duty to provide for the safety of our capital. Be- 
sides, a man will generally pay little attention to agencies he 
does not understand. None of us knew anything about a 
navy. I doubt if the President ever saw anything more 
formidable than a river steamboat, and I don't think Mr. 
Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, knew the stem from the 
stern of a ship. Of the whole Cabinet, I am the only mem- 
ber who ever was fairly at sea, or crossed the Atlantic. 
Some of us never even saw it. No wonder we did not un- 
derstand the necessity for creating a navy at once. Soon, 
liowever, our Government will be able to dispose of a re- 
spectable marine, and when our army is ready to move, 
cooperating with the fieet, the days of the rebellion are num- 
bered." 

" When will that be, Mr. Secretary ? " 

'* Soon ; very soon, I hope. We can, however, bear delays. 
Thes^rebeis will be ruined by it." 



CHAPTER LIII. 

Return to Baltimore — Colonel Carroll — A Priest's view of the Abo- 
lition of Slavery — Slavery in Maryland — Harper's Ferry — 
John Brown — Back by train to Washington — Further accounts 
of Bull llun — American Vanity — My own unpopularity for 
speaking the truth — Iviiling a "Nigger" no murder — Navy De- 
partment. 

On the 17th August I returned to Baltimore on ray way to 
Drohoregan Manor, the seat of Colonel Carroll, in Maryland, 
where I had been invited to spend a few days by his son- 
in-law, an English gentleman of ray acquaintance. Leaving 
Baltiraore at 5-40, p. m,, in company with Mr. Tucker Calroll, 
I proceeded by train to ElHcott's Mills, a station fourteen 
miles on the Ohio and Baltimore Railroad, from which our 
host's residence is distant more than an hour's drive. The 
country through which the line passes is picturesque and un- 
dulating, with hills and valleys and brawling streams, spread- 
ing in woodland and glade, ravine, and high uplands on either 
side, haunted by cotton factories, poisoning air and water; 
but it has been a formidable district for the engineers to get 
through, and the line abounds in those triumphs of engineer- 
ing which are generally the ruin of shareholders. 

All these lines are now in the hands of the military. At 
the Washington terminus there is a guard placed to see 
that no unauthorized person or unwilling volunteer is going 
north ; the line is watched by patrols and sentries; troops are 
encamped along its course. The factory chimneys are smoke- 
less ; half the pleasant villas which cover the hills or dot the 
oi)enings in the forest have a deserted look and closed windows. 
And so tbese great works, the Carrollton Viaduct, the Thomas 
Viaduct, and the high embankments and great cuttings in 
the ravine by the riverside, over which the line passes, have 
almost a depressing effect, as if the people for whose use they 
were intended ha'd all become extinct. At Ellicott's Mills, 
which is a considerable manufacturing town, more soldiers and 



492 MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Union flags. The people are Unionists, but the neighboring 
gentry and country people are Seceshers. 

This is the case wherever there is a manufacturing popula- 
tion in Maryland, because the workmen are generally foreign- 
ers, or have come from the Northern States, and feel little 
sympathy with States Rights' doctrines, and the tendencies of 
the landed gentry to a conservative action on the slave ques- 
tion. There was no good-will in the eyes of the mechanicals 
as they stared at our vehicle ; for the political bias of Colonel 
Carroll was well known, as well as the general sentiments of 
his family. It was dai'k when we reached the manor, which 
is approached by an avenue of fine trees. The house is old- 
fashioned, and has received additions from time to time. But 
for the black fiices of the domestics, one might easily fancy 
he was in some old country house in Ireland. The family 
have adhered to their ancient faith. The founder of the Car- 
rolls in Maryland came over with the Catholic colonists led 
by Lord Baltimore, or by his brother, Leonard Calvert; and 
the Colonel possesses some interesting deeds of grant and con- 
veyaoce of the vast estates, which have been diminished by 
large sales year after year, but still spread over a considerable 
part of several counties in the State. 

Colonel Carroll is an immediate descendant of one of the 
leaders in the Revolution of 1776; and he pointed out to me 
the room in which Carroll, of Carrollton, and George Wash- 
ington, were wont to meet when they were concocting their 
splendid treason. One of his connections married the late 
Marquis AVellesley ; and the Colonel takes pleasure in setting 
forth how the daughter of the Irish recusant, who fled from 
his native country all but an outlaw, sat on the throne of the 
Queen of Ireland, or, in other words, held court in Dublin 
Castle as wife of the Viceroy. Drohoregan is supposed to 
mean " Hall of the Kings," and is called after an old place 
belonging, some time or other, to the family, the early histoiy 
of which, as set forth in the Celtic authorities and Irish anti- 
q^iarian works, possesses great attractions for the kindly, 
genial old man, — kindly and genial to all but the Abolition- 
ists and Black Republicans ; nor is he indifferent to the reputa- 
tion of the State in the Revolutionary War, where the " Mary- 
land line " seems to have differed from many of the contin- 
gents of the otlier States, in not running away so often at 
critical moments in the serious actions. Colonel Carroll has 
sound arguments to prove the sovereign independence and 



ROMAN CATHOLIC NEGROES. 493 

right of every State in the Union, derived from family teaching 
and the lessons of those who founded the Constitntion itself. 

On the day after my arrival the rain fell in torrents. The 
weather is as uncertain as that of our own isle. The torrid 
heats at Washington, the other day, were succeeded by bitter 
cold days ; now there is a dense mist, chilly and clieerless, 
seeming as a sort of strainer for the even down-pour that 
falls through it continuously. The family after breakfast 
slipped round to the little chapel, which forms the extremity 
of one wing of the house. The colored people on the estate 
were already trooping across the lawn and up the avenue 
from the slave quarters, decently dressed foi" the most part, 
having due allowance for the extraordinary choice of colors 
in their gowns, bonnets, and ribbons, and for the uniiappy im- 
itations, on the part of the men, of the attire of their mas- 
ters. They walked demurely and quietly past the house ; 
and presently the priest, dressed like a French cure, trotted 
up, and service began. Tiie negro houses were of a much 
better and more substantial character than those one sees in 
the South, though not remarkable for cleanliness and good 
order. Truth to say, thej were palaces compared. to the huts 
of Ii-ish laborers, shell as might be found, perhaps, on the , 
estates of the colonel's kinsmen at home. The negroes are ("^ 
far more independent than they are in the South. . They are 
less civil, less obliging, and, although they do come cring- 
ing to shake hands as the field hands on a Louisianian planta- 
tion, less servile. They inhabit a small village of brick and 
wood houses, across the road at the end of the avenue, and in 
sight of the house. The usual swarms of little children, 
poultry, pigs, enlivened by goats, embarrassed the steps of 
the visitor ; and the old peo[)le, or those who were not finely 
dressed enough for mass, peered out at the strangers from the 
glassless windows. 

When chapel was over, the boys and girls came up for 
catechism, and passed in review before the ladies of the house, 
with whom they were on very good terms. The priest joined 
us in the veranda when his labors were over, and talked with 
intelligence of the terrible war which has burst over the land. 
He has just returned from a tour in the Northern States ; and 
it is his belief the native Americans thei'e will not enlist, but 
that they will get foreigners to fight their battles. He ad- 
mitted that slavery was in itself an evil, nay, mon*, that it 
was not profitable in Maryland. But what are the landed 



494 MY DIARY KORTH AND SOUTH. 

proprietors to do? The slaves have been bequeathed to them 
as pi-operty by their fathers, with certain oblijzations to be re- 
s-pected, and duties to be fulfilled. It is impossible to free 
them, because, at the moment of emancipation, nothing short 
of the coiitiscation of all tlie labor and property of the whites 
would be required to maintain the nen^roes, who would cer- 
tainly refuse to work, unless they had their masters' land as 
their own. Where is white labor to be found? Its introduc- 
tion must be the work of years ; and meantime many thou- 
sands of slaves, who have a right to protection, would canker 
the land. 

In Maryland they do not breed slaves for the purpose of 
selling tliem as they do in Virginia, and yet Colonel Carroll 
and other gentlemen who regarded the slaves they inherited 
almost as members of their families, have b(;en stigmatized 
by Abolition orators as slave-breeders and slave-dealers. It 
was these insults which stung the gentlemen of Maryland and 
of the other Slave States to the quick, and made them resolve 
never to yield to the domination of a party which had never 
ceased to wage war against their institutions and their I'eputa- 
tion and honor. 

A little knot of friends and relations joined Colonel Carroll 
at dinner. There are few families in this part of Maryland 
which have not representatives in the other army across the 
Potomac; and if Beauregard could but make his appearance, 
the women alone would give him welcome such as no con- 
queror ever received in liberated city. 

Next day the rain fell incessantly. The mail was brought 
in by a little negro boy on horseback, and I was warned by 
my letters that an immediate advance of McClellan's troops 
was probable. This is an old story. " Battle expected to- 
morrow " has been a heading in the papers fur the last fort- 
night. In the afternoon I was driven over a part of the 
estate in a close carriage, tlu'ough the windows of which, how- 
ever, I caught glimpses of a beautiful country, wooded glori- 
ously, and soft, sylvan, and well-cultivated as the best parts of 
Hampshire and Gloucestershire, the rolling lands of which 
latter county, indeed, it much resembled in its large fields, 
heavy with crops of tobacco and corn. The weather was too 
unfavorable to, admit of a close inspection of the fields; but I 
visitfid one or two tobacco houses, where tlui fragrant Mary- 
land was lying in masses on the ground, or hanging from the 
rafters, or filled the heavy hogsheads with compressed smoke. 



HARPER'S FERRY. 495 

Next clay I took the train, at Ellicott's Mills, and went to 
Har[)er's Ferry. There is no one spot, in the history of this 
extraordinary war, which can be well more conspicuons. 
Had it nothing more to recommend it than the scenery, it 
might well command a visit from tiie tourist ; but as the scene 
of old John Brown's raid upon the P'ederal arsenal, of that 
first passage of arms betweeen the Abolitionists and the Slave 
Conservatives, which has developed this great contest ; above 
all, as the spot where important military demonstrations have 
been made on both sides, and will necessarily occur' hereaftei", 
this place, whicii probably derives its name from some 
wretched old boatman, will be renowned forever in the annals 
of the Civil War of 1861. The Patapsco, by the bank of 
which the rail is carried for some miles, has all the character 
of a mountain torrent, rushing through gorges or carving out 
its way at the ba^^e of granite hills, or boldly cutting a path tor 
itself through the softer slate. Bridges, viaducts, remark- 
able archways, and great spans of timber trestle-work leaping 
from hill to hill, enable the rail to creep onwards and upwards 
by tlie mountain side to the Potomac at Point of Rocks, 
whence it winds its way over undulating ground, by stations 
with eccentric names to the river's bank once more. We 
were carried on to the station next to Harper's Ferry on a 
ledge of the precipitous mountain range which almost over- 
hangs the stream. But few civilians were in the train. The 
greater number of passengers consisted of soldiers and sutlers, 
proceeding to their encampments along the river. A strict 
watch was kept over the passengers, whose passes were ex- 
amined by officers at the various stations. At one place an 
otHcer who really looked like a soldier entered the train, and 
on seeing my [)ass told me in broken English that he had 
served in the Crimea, and was acquainted with me and many 
of my friends. The gentleman who accompanied me observed, 
' I do not know whether he was in the Crimea or not, but I do 
know that till very lately your friend the Major was a dan- 
cing-master in New York." A person of a very ditlerent type 
made his offers of service, Colonel Gordon of the 2d Massa- 
chusetts Regiment, who caused the train to run on as far as 
Har[)er's Ferry, in order to give me a sight of the place, 
altliough in conse(|uence of the evil habit of firing on the 
carriages in which the Confederates across the river have 
been indulging, the locomotive generally halts at some distance 
below the bend of the river. 



496 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Harper's Ferry lies in a gorge formed by a rush of the 
Potomac through the mountain ridges, which it cuts at right 
angles to its course at its junction witli the river Shenandoah. 
So trenchant and abrupt is the division that little land is on 
the divided ridge to build upon. The precipitous hills on both 
sides are covered with forest, which has been cleared in 
patches here and there on the Maryland shore, to permit of 
the erection of batteries. On the Virginian side there lies a 
mass of blackened and ruined buildings, from which a street 
lined with good houses stretches up the hill. Just above the 
junction of the Shenandoah with the Potomac, an elevated 
bridge or viaduct 300 yards long leaps from hill-side to hill- 
side. The arches had been broken — the rails which ran 
along the top torn up, and there is now a deep gulf fixed be- 
tween the shores of Maryland and Virginia. The rail to 
Winchester from this point has been destroyed, and the line 
along the Potomac has also been ruined. 

But for the batteries which cover the shoal water at the 
junction of the two rivers below the bridge, there would be no 
difficulty in crossing to the Maryland shore, and from that side 
the whole of the ground around Harper's Ferry is completely 
commanded. The gorge is almost as deep as the pass of 
Killiecranckie, which it resembles in most respects except in 
breadth and the size of the river between, and if ever a rail- 
road finds its way to Blair Athol, the passengers will find 
something to look at very like the scenery on the route to 
Harper's Ferry. The vigilance required to guard tlie pass 
of the river above and below this point is incessant, but the 
Federals possess the advantage on their side of a deep canal 
parallel to the railway and running above the level of the 
river, which would be a more formidable obstacle than tiie 
Potomac to infantry or guns. There is reason to believe that 
the Secessionists in Maryland cross bac'kwards and forwards 
whenever they please, and the Virginians coming down at 
their leisure to the opposite shore, inflict serious annoyance on 
the Federal troops by constant rifie practice. 

Looking up and down the river tiie scenery is picturesque, 
though it is by no means entitled to the extraordinary praises 
which American toiu'ists lavish upon it. Probably old Joim 
Brown can^d little for the wild magic of streamlet or rill, or 
for the blended charm of vale and woodland. When he made 
his attack on the arsenal now in ruins, he probably thought a 
valley was as high as a hill, and that there was no necessity 



BACK TO WASHINGTON. 497 

for water running downwards — assuredly he saw as little of 
the actual heights and deptlis around hira when he ran across 
tlie Potomac to revolutionize Virginia. He has left behind 
him millions either as clear-sighted or as blind as himself. In 
New England parlors a statuette of John Brown may be found 
as a pendant to the likeness of our Saviour. In Virginia his 
name is the synonyme of all that is base, bloody, and cruel. 

Harper's Ferry at present, for all practical purposes, may 
be considered as Confederate property. The few Union in- 
habitants remain in their houses, but many of the Govern- 
ment workmen and most of the inhabitant's have gone off 
South. For strategical purposes its possession would be most 
important to a foi-ce desiring (o operate on Maryland from 
Virginia. The Blue Ridge range running up to the Slienan- 
doali divides tlie country so as to permit a force debouching 
from Harper's Ferry to advance down the valley of tlie 
Shenandoali on the riglit. or to move to the left between the 
Blue Ridge and the KatO(!tin mountains towards the Manas- 
sas Railway at its discretion. After a false alarm that some 
Secesh cavalry were coming down to renew the skirmisiiing 
of the day before, I returned, and travelling to Relay House 
just saved the train to Washington, where I arrived after 
sunset. A large number of Federal troops are employed 
along these lines, which they occupy as if they were in a 
hostile country. An imperfectly formed regiment broken up 
into these detachments and placed in isolated posts, under ig- 
norant officers, may be regarded as almost worthless for mili- 
tary operations. Hence the constant niglit ahvrms — the 
mistakes — the skirmishes and instances of misbehavior which 
arise along these extended lines. 

On the journey from Harper's Ferry, the concentration of 
masses of troops along the road, and the march of heavy ar- 
tillery trains, caused me to think a renewal of the offensive 
movement against Richmond was immediate, but at Washing- 
ton I heard that all MeClellan wanted or hoped for at present, 
was to make Maryland safe and to gain time for the formation 
of his army. The Confederates appear to be moving towards 
their left, and MeClellan is very uneasy lest they should make 
a vigorous attack before he is prepared to receive them. 

In the evening the New York papers came in with the ex- 
tracts from the London papers containing my account of the 
battle of Bull Run. Utterly foi-giMting their own versions 
of the engagement, the New York editors now find it conven- 



498 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ient to divert attention from the bitter truth that was in them, 
to the letter of tlie foreisfn newspaper correspondent, who, be- 
cause he is a British subject, will prove not only useful as a 
conductor to carry off the popular wrath from the American 
journalists themselves, but as a means by induction of charg- 
ing the vials afresh against the British people, inasmuch as 
they have not condoled with the North on the defeat of ar- 
mies which they were assured would, if successful, he immedi- 
ately led to effect the disruption of the British empire. At the 
outset T had foreseen this would he the case, and deliberately 
accepted the issue ; but when I found the Northern journal 
far exceeding in severity anything I could have said, and in- 
dulging in ixeneral invective against whole classes of American 
soldiery, olficers, and statesmen, I was foolish enough to ex- 
pect a little justice, not to say a word of the smallest gener- 
osity. 

August 'A}st. — The echoes of Bull Run are coming back 
with a vengeance. This day month the miserable fragments 
of a beaten, washed out, demoralized army, were flooding in 
disorder and dismay the streets of the capital from which they 
had issued forth to repel the tide of invasion. This day month 
and all tlie editors and journalists in the States, weeping, wail- 
ing, and gnasliing their teeth, infused extra gall into their ink, 
and poured out invec^tive, abuse, and obloquy on tlieir defeated 
general and their broken hosts. The President and his Min- 
isters, stunned by the tremendous calamity, sat listening in fVar 
and trembling for the sound of the enemy's cannon. The 
veteran soldicn-, on whom the boasted hopes of the nation 
rested, heart-sick and beaten down, had neither counsel to give 
nor action to offer. At any moment tiie Confederate columns 
might be expected in Pennsylvania Avenue to receive the 
welcome of their friends and the submission of their helpless 
and disheartened enemies. 

All this is forgotten — and much more, which need not 
now be repeated. Saved from a great peril, even the bitter- 
ness of death, they forget the danger that has passed, deny 
that they uttered cries of distress and appeals for help, and 
swagger in all the insolence of I'ecovered strength. Not only 
that, hut they turn and rend those whose writing has been 
dug up after thirty days, and comes back as a rebuke to their 
pride. 

Conscious that they have insulted and irritated their own 
army, that they have earned the bitter hostility of men in 



A MONTH AGO. 499 

power, and have for once inflicted a wound on the vanity to 
which they have given such offensive dimensions, if not hfe 
itself, they now seek to run a drag scent between the public 
nose and their own unpopularity, and to create such an 
amount of indignation and to cast so much odium upon one 
who has had greater facilities to know, and is more willing to 
tell the truth, than any of their organs, that he will be unable 
henceforth to perform his duties in a country where unpopu- 
larity means simply a political and moral atrophy or death. 
In the telegraphic summary some days ago a few phrases 
were picked out of my letters, which were but very faint 
paraphrases of some of the sentences which might be culled 
from Northern newspapers, but the storm has been gathering 
ever since, and I am no doubt to experience the truth of De 
Toequeville's remark, " that a stranger who injures American 
vanity, no matter how justly, may make up his mind to be a 
martyr." 

August 22d. — 

" Tlio little dogs and all, 
Tray, IJlanche, and Sweetheart, • 
See they bark at me." 

The North have recovered their wind, and their jiipers are 
blowing with might and main. The time given them to 
breathe after Bull Run has certainly been accompanied with 
a greater development of lung and power of blowing than 
could have been expected. The volunteer army which dis- 
persed and returned home to receive the lo Pceans of the 
North, has been replaced by better and more numerous levies, 
which have the strong finger and thumb of General McClel- 
lan on their vvind[)ipe, and lind it is not quite so easy as it was 
to do as they pleased. The North, besides, has received sup- 
plies of money, and is using its great resources, by land and 
sea, to some purpose, and as they wax fat they kick. 

A general officer said to me, " Of course you will never 
remain, when once all the press are down upon you. I would 
not take a million dollars and be in your place." " But is 
what I've written untrue ? " " God bless you ! do you know 
in this country if you can get enough of ])eo|)le to start a lie 
about any man, he would be ruined, if the Evangelists came 
forward to swear the story was false. There are thousands 
of people who this moment believe that McDowell, who never 
tasted anything stronger than a water-melon in all his life, 



500 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

was helplessly drunk at Bull Run. Mind what I say ; they'll 
run you into a mud-hole as sure as you live." I was not 
much impressed with the danger of my position further than 
that I knew there would be a certain amount of risk from 
the rowdyism and vanity of what even the Americans admit 
to be the "lower orders, for which I had been prepared from 
the moment I had despatched my letter ; but I confess I was 
not by any means disposed to think that the leaders of public 
opinion would seek the small gratification of revenge, and the 
petty popularity of pandering to the passions of the mob, by 
creating a popular cry against me. I am not aware that any 
foreigner ever visited the United States who was injudicious 
enough to write one single word derogatory to their claims to 
be the first of created beings, who was not assailed with the 
most viperous malignity and rancor. The man who says he 
has detected a single spot on the face of their sun should pre- 
pare his winding sheet. 

The " New York Times," I find, states " that the terrible 
epistle has been read with quite as much avidity as an aver- 
age President's Message. We scarcely exaggerate the fact 
when we say, the first and fox'emost thought on the minds of 
a very large portion of our people after the repulse at Bull 
Run was, what will Russell say ? " and then they repeat some 
of the absurd sayings attributed to me, who declared openly 
from the very first that I had not seen the battle at all, to the 
effect " that I had never seen such fighting in all my life, and 
that nothing at Alma or Inkerman was equal to it." An anal- 
ysis of the letter follows, in which it is admitted that " with 
perfect candor I purported to give an account of what I saw, 
and not of the action which I did not see," and the writer, 
who is, if I mistake not, the Hon. Mr. Raymond, of the " New 
York Times," like myself a witness of the facts I describe, 
quotes a passage in which I say, " There was no flight of 
troops, no retreat of an army, no reason for all this precipita- 
tion," and then declares " that my letter gives a very spirited 
and perfectly just description of the panic which impelled and 
accompanied the troo[)s from Centreville to Washington. He 
does not, for he cannot, in the least exaggerate its hori'ible 
disorder, or the disgraceful behavior of the ineouipetent offi- 
cers by whom it was aided, instead of being checked. He 
saw nothing wiiatever of the fighting, and therefore says noth- 
ing whatever of its quality. He gives a clear, fair, perfectly 
just and accurate, as it is a spirited and graphic account of 



BLACK AND WHITE. 501 

the extraordiuary scenes which passed under his observation. 
Discreditable as those scenes were to our army, we have 
nothing in connection with them whereof to accuse the re- 
porter ; he has done justice alike to himself, his subject, and 
the country." 

Ne nobis hlandiar, I may add, that at least I desired to do 
so, and I can prove from Northern papers that if their ac- 
counts were true, I certainly much " extenuated and nought 
set down in malice " — nevertheless, Philip drunk is very 
different from Philip sober, frightened, and running away, 
and the man who attempts to justify his version to the inebri- 
ated polycuphalous monarch is sure to meet such treatment as 
inebriated desjjots generally award to their censors. 

August 23d. — Tiie torrent is swollen to-day by anonymous 
letters threatening me with bowie-knife and revolver, or sim- 
ply abusive, frantic with hate, and full of obscure warnings. 
Some bear the Washington postmark, others came from New 
York, the greater number — for I have had nine — are from 
Pliiladel|)hia. Perliaps they may come from the members of 
that "gallant" ith Pennsylvania Regiment. 

August 24th. — My servant came in this morning, to an- 
nounce a trifling accident — he was exercising my horse, and 
at the corner of one of those charming street crossings, the 
animal fell and broke its leg. A "vet" was sent for. I was 
sure that sucli a portent had never been born in those Daunian 
woods. A man about twenty-seven or twenty-eight stone 
weight, middle-aged and active, with a fine professional feeling 
for distressed horse-flesh ; and I was right in my conjectures 
that he was a Briton, though the vet had become Americanized, 
and was full of enthusiasm about "our war for the Union," 
which was yielding him a fine harvest. He complained there 
were a good many bad characters about Washington. The 
matter is proved beyond doubt by what we see, hear, and read. 
To-day there is an account in the papers of a brute shooting 
a negro boy dead, because he asked him for a chew of tobacco. 
Will he be hanged ? Not the smallest chance of it. The 
idea of hanging a white man for killing a nigger ! It is more 
preposterous here than it is in India, where our authorities 
have actually executed whites for the murder of natives. 

Before diinier I walked down to the Washington Navy Yard. 
Captain Daldgren was sorely perplexed vvitli an intoxicated 
senator, whose name it is not necessary to mention, and who 
seemed to think he paid me a great compliment by expressing 



502 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

his repeated desire " to have a good look at " me. " I giless 
you're quite notorious now. You'll excuse me because I've 
dined, now — and so you are the Mr. &c., &c., &c." The 

senator informed me that he was '' none of your d d 

blackfaced Republicans. He didn't care a d about nig- 
gers — his business was to do good to his fellow white men, to 
hold our glorious Union together, and let the niggers take 
care of themselves." 

I was glad when a diversion was effected by the arrival of 
Mr. Fox, Assisitant Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Blair, Post- 
master-General, to consult with the Captain, who is greatly looked 
u}) to by all the members of the Cabinet — in fact he is rather 
inconvenienced by the perpetual visits of the President, who 
is animated by a most extraordinary curiosity about naval mat- 
ters and machinery, and is attracted by the novelty of the 
whole department, so that he is continually running down " to 
have a talk with Dahlgren " when he is not engaged in " a 
chat with George." The senator opened such a smart fire on 
the minister that the latter retired, and I mounted and rode 
back to town. In the evening Major Clarence Brown, Lieu- 
tenant Wise, a lively, pleasant, and amusing little sailor, well- 
known in the States as the author of " Los Gringos," who is 
now employed in the Navy Department, and a few of the gen- 
tlemen connected with the Foreign Legations came in, and 
we had a great international reunion and discussion till a late 
hour. Tiiere is a good deal of agreeable banter reserved for 
myself, as to the exact form of death which I am most likely 
to meet. I was seriously advised by a friend not to stir out 
unarmed. The great use of a revolver is that it will prevent 
the indignity of tarring and feathering, now pretty rife, by 
provoking greater violence. I also received a letter from 
London, advising me to apply to Lord Lyons for protection, 
but that could only be extended to me within the walls of the 
Legation. 

August 2bt]t. — I visited the Navy Department, which is a 
small red-brick building two stories high, very plain and even 
humble. The subordinate departments are conducted in rooms 
b(ilow stairs. The executive are lodged in the rooms which 
line both sides of the corridor above. The walls of the passage 
are lined with paintings in oil and water colors, engravings and 
paintings in the worst style of art. To the latter considerable 
interest attaches, as they are authentic likenesses of naval 
officers who gained celebrity in the wars with Great Britain — 



TIIE NAA^y DEPAKTMENT. 503 

men like Pevry, McDonough, Decatur, and Hull, who, as the 
Americans boast, was " the first man who compelled a British 
frigate of greater force than his own to strike her colors in fair 
fight." Paul Jones was not to be seen, but a drawing is proudly 
pointed to of the attack of the American fleet on Algiers as a 
proof of hatred to piracy, and of the prominent part taken by 
the young States in putting an end to it in Europe. In one 
room are several swords, surrendered by English officers in 
the single frigate engagements, and the duplicates of medals, 
in gold and silver, voted by Congress to the victors. In 
Lieutenant Wise's room, there are models of the projectiles, 
and a series of shot and shell used in the navy, or deposited by 
inventors. Among other relies was the flag of Captain Ward's 
boat just brought in which was completely riddled by the bullet 
marks received in the ambuscade in which that officer was 
killed, with nearly all of his boat's crew, as they incautiously 
approached tlie shore of the Potomac, to take off a small craft 
placed there to decoy them by the Confederates. My business 
was to pave the way for a passage on boai'd a steamer, in case 
of any naval expedition starting before the army was ready to 
move, but all difficulties were at once removed by the prompti- 
tude and courtesy of Mr. Fox, the Assistant Secretary, who 
promised to give me an order for a passage whenever I required 
it. The extreme civility and readiness to oblige of all Ameri- 
can officials, high and low, from the gate-keepers and door-por- 
ters up to the heads of departments, cannot be too highly 
praised, and it is ungenerous to acce])t the explanation offered 
by an English officer to whom I remarked the circumstance, 
that it is due to the fact that each man is liable to be turned 
out at the end of four years, and therefore makes all the 
friends he can. 

In the afternoon I I'ode out with Captain Johnson, through 
some charming woodland scenery on the outskirts of Washing- 
ton, by a brawling stream, in a shady little ravine, that put me 
in mind of the Dargle. Our ride led us into the camps, 
formed on the west of Georgetown to cover the city from the 
attacks of an enemy advancing along the left bank of the 
Potpmac, and in support of several strong forts and earthworks 
placed on the heights. One regiment consists altogether of 
Frenchmen — another is of Germans — in a third I saw an 
officer with a Crimean and Indian medal on his breast, and 
several privates wit-ii similar decorations. Some of the regi- 
ments were on parade, and crowds of civilians from Washing- 



504 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ton were enjoying the novel scene, and partaking of the hos- 
pitality of their friends. One old lady, whom I have always 
seen about the camps, and who is a sort of ancient heroine of 
Saragossa, had an opportunity of being useful. The 15th 
Massachusetts, a fine-looking body of men, had broken up 
camp, and were marcliiiig off to the sound of their own voices 
chanting " Old John Brown," when one of the enormous trains 
of baggage wagons attached to them was carried off by the 
frightened mules which probably had belonged to Virgin- 
ian farmers, and one of the soldiers, in trying to stop it, was 
dashed to the ground and severely injured. The old lady 
was by his side in a moment, and out came her flask of strong 
waters, bandages, and medical comforts and apparatus. " It's 
well I'm here for this poor Union soldier ; I'm sure I always 
have something to do in these camps." On my return late, 
there was a letter on ray table requesting me to visit General 
McClellan, but it was then too far advanced to avail myself of 
the invitation, which was only delivered after I left my lodg- 
ings. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

A tour of inspection round the camp — A troublesome horse — 
McDowell and the President — My description of Bull Run in- 
dorsed by American officers — Influence of the Press — Newspa- 
per correspondents — Dr. Bray — My letters — Capt. Meagher — 
Military adventurers — Probable duration of the war — Lord A. 
Vane Tempest — The American journalist — Threats of assassi- 
nation. 

August 2Gth. — General Van Vliet called from General 
McClellan to say that the Commander-in-Chief would be happy 
to go round the camps with me when he next made an inspec- 
tion, and would send round an orderly and charger in time to 
get ready before he started. These little excursions are not 
tthe most agreeable affairs in the world ; for McClellan delights 
in working down statF and escort, dashing from the Chain 
Bridge to Alexandria, and visiting all the posts, riding as hard 
as he can, and not returning till past midnight, so that if one 
has a regai'd for his cuticle, or his mail-days he will not rashly 
venture on such excursions. To-day he is to inspect McDow- 
ell's division. 

I set out accordingly with Captain Johnson over the Long 
Bridge, which is now very strictly guarded. On exhibiting 
my pass to the sentry at the entrance, he called across to the 
sergeant and spoke to him aside, showing him the pass at the 
same time. " Are you Russell, of the London ' Times ' ? " said 
the sergeant. I replied, "If you look at the pass, you will see 
who I am." He turned it over, examined it most narrowly, 
and at 4Rst, with an expression of infinite dissatisfaction and 
anger upon his face, handed it back, saying to the sentry, " I 
suppose you must let him, go." 

Meantime Captain Johnson was witching the world with 
feats of noble horsemanship, for I had lent him my celebrated 
horse Walker, so calltid because no earthly equestrian can in- 
duce him to do anything but trot violently, gallop at full speed, 
or stand on his hind legs. Captain Johnson laid the whole 
22 



506 MV DLfUY XOKTH AND SOUTH. 

fault of the iiuiinars conduct to my mismanagement, affirming 
that all it required was a light hand and gentleness, and so, as 
he could display both, I promised to let him have a trial to-day- 
Walker, on starting, however, insisted on having a dance to 
himself, which my friend attributed to the excitement produced 
by the presence of the other horse, and I rode quietly along 
whilst the captain proceeded to establish an acquaintance with 
his steed in some quiet by-street. As I was crossing tile 
Long Bridge, the forbidden clatter of a horse's hoofs on the 
planks caused me to look round, and on, in a cloud of dust, 
through the midst of shouting sentries, came my friend of the 
gentle hand and unruffled temper, with his hat thumped down 
on the back of his head, his eyes gleaming, his teeth clinched, 
his fine featin-es slightly flushed, to say the least of it, sawing 
violently at Walker's head, and exclaiming, " You brute, I'll 
teach you to walk," till he brought up by the barrier midway 
on the bridge. The guard, en masse, called the Captain's at- 
tention to the order, " all horses to walk over the bridge." 
"Why, that's what I want him to do. I'll give any man 
among you one hundred dollars who can make him walk along 
this bridge or anywhere else." The redoubtable steed, being 
permitted to proceed upon its way, dashed swiftly thi'ough the, 
tete de pont, or stood on his hind legs when imperatively ar- 
rested by a barrier or abattis, and on these occasions my ex- 
cellent friend, as he displayed his pass in one hand and re- 
strained Bucephalus with the other, reminded me of nothing 
so much as the statue of Peter the Great, in the square on 
the banks of the Neva, or the noble equestrian monument of 
General Jackson, which decorates the city of Washington. 
The troops of McDowell's division were already drawn up on 
a rugged plain, close to the river's margin, in happi'er days the 
scene of the city races. A pestilential odor rose from the 
slaughter-houses close at hand, but regardless of odor or 
marsh. Walker continued his violent exercise, evidently under 
the idea that he was assisting at a retreat of the grand army 
as before. ^ 

Presently General McDowell and one of his aides cantered 
over, and whilst waiting for General McClellan, he talked of 
the fierce outburst directed against me in the press. " I must 
confess," he said laughingly, " 1 am much rejoiced to find you 
are as much abused as I have been. I hope you mind it as 
little as I did. Bull Bun was an unliortunate atlair for both 
of us, for had I won it, you would have had to describe the 



A REVIEW. 507 

pursuit of the flying enemy, and then you would have been 
the most popuhir writer in America, and I would have been 
lauded as the greatest of generals. See what measure has 
been meted to us now. I'm accused of drunkenness and 
gambling, and you Mr. Russell — well! — I really do hope 
you are not so black as you are painted." Presently a cloud 
of dust on the road announced the arrival of the President, 
who came upon the ground in an open carriage, with Mr. 
Seward by his side, accompanied by General McClellan and 
his staff in undress uniform, and an escort of the very dirtiest 
and most unsoldierly dragoons, with filthy accoutrements and 
ungroomed horses, I ever saw. The troops dressed into line 
and |)resented arras, whilst the band struck up the " Star- 
Spangled Banner," as the Americans have got no air which 
corresponds with our National Anthem, or is in any way com- 
plimentary to the quadrennial despot who fills the President's 
chair. 

General McDowell seems on most excellent terms with the 
present Commander-in-Chief, as he is with the President. 
Immediately after Bull Run, when the President first saw 
McDowell, he said to him, " I have not lost a particle of con- 
fidence in you," to whicli tlie General replied, " I don't see 
why you should, Mr. President." But there was a curious 
commentary, either on the sincerity of Mr. Lincoln, or in his 
utter subserviency to mob opinion, in the fact that he who can 
overrule congress and act pretty much as he pleases in time 
of war, had, without opportunity for explanation or demand 
for it, at once displaced the man in whom he still retained the 
fullest confidence, degraded him to command of a division of 
the army of which he had been General-in-Chief, and placed 
a junior officer over his head. 

After some ordinary movements, the march past took place, 
which satisfied me that the new levies were very superior to 
the three months' men, though far, indeed, from being soldiers. 
Finer material could not be found in physi(pie. With the ex- 
ception of an assemblage of miserable scarecrows in rags and 
tatters, swept up in New York and commanded by a Mr. Ker- 
rigan, no division of the ordinary line, in any army, could .Jiow 
a greater number of tall, robust men in the prime of life. A 
soldier standing near me, pointing out Kerrigan's corps, said, 
*' The boy whc commands that pretty lot recruited thein first 
for the Seceshes in" New York, but finding he could not get 
them away he handed them ovei' to Uncle Sam." The men 



508 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

were sil(?nt as they marched past, and did not cheer for Presi- 
dent or Union. 

I i-L'turned from the field to Arlington House, having; hoen 
invited with my friend to ^hare the General's camp dinner. 
On our way along the road, I asked Major Brown why he rode 
over to us hetbre the review commenced. " Well," said he, 
" my attention was called to you by one of our staff saying 
' there are two Englishmen,' and the General sent me over to 
invite them, and followed when he saw who it was." " But 
how could 3'ou tell we were English ? " "I don't know," said 
he, " there were otiier civilians about, but therq was something 
about the look of vou two which marked you immediately as 
Joim Bull." 

At the General's tent we found General Sherman, Generals 
Ke}'es, Wadsworth, and some others. Dinner was spread on 
a table covered by the flap of the tent, and consisted of good 
plain fare, and a dessert of prodigious water-melons. I was 
exceedingly gratified to hear every officer present declare in 
the presence of the general who had connnanded the army, 
and who iiimself .<aid no words could exaggerate the disorder 
of the loute, that my narrative of Bull Run was not only 
true but moderate. 

General Sliennan, whom I met for the first time, said, " Mr. 
Russell, I can indorse every word tiiat you wrote; your state- 
ments about the battle, which you say you did not witness, are 
ecpialiy correct. All tlie stories about charging batteries and 
attacks with the bayonet are simply falselioods, so far as my 
command is concerned, though some of the troops did fight 
well. As to cavalry charges, I wish we had had a few cavalry 
to have tried one ; those Black Horse fellows seemed as if 
their horses ran away with them." General Keyes said, 
" I don't think you made it half bad enough. I could not get 
the men to stand after they had received the first severe check. 
The enemy swept the open 'with a tremendous musketry fire. 
Some of our men and portions of regiments behaved admirably 
— we drove tiiem easily at first; the cavalry did very little 
indeed; but when they did come on I could not get the in- 
fantry to stand, and after a harmless volley they broke." 
These officers were brigadiers of Tyler's division. 

The conversation tm-ned upon tlie influence of the press in 
America, and I observed that every soldier at table spoke 
with the utmost dislike and antipathy of the New York jour- 
nals, to which they gave a metropolitan position, although each 



DR. BRAY. 509 

man had some favorite paper of his own which he excepted 
from the charge made against the whole body. The principal 
accusations made against the press were tliat the conductors 
are not gentlemen, that they are calumnious and corrupt, re- 
gardless of truth, honor, anything but circulation and adver- 
tisements. " It is the first time we have had a chance of 
dealing with these fellows, and we shall not lose it." 

I returned to Washington at dusk over the Aqueduct Bridge. 
A gentleman, who introduced himself to me as correspondent 
of one of the cheap London papers, sent out specially on 
account of his great experience to write from the States, under 
the auspices of the leaders of the advanced liberal party, came 
to ask if I had seen an article in the " Chicago Tribune," pur- 
porting to be written by a gentleman who says he was in my 
company during the retreat, contradicting what I report. I 
was advised by several officers — whose opinion I took — that 
it would be derogatory to me if I noticed the writer. I read 
it over carefully, and must say I am surprised — if anything 
could surprise me in American journalism — at the impudence 
and mendacity of the man. Having first stated that he rode 
along with me from point to point at a certain portion of the 
road, he states that he did not hear or see certain things which 
I say that I saw and heard, or deliberately falsifies what passed, 
for the sake of a little ephemeral applause, quotations in the 
papers, increased importance to himself, and some more abuse 
of the English correspondent. 

This statement made me recall the circumstance alluded to 
more particularly. I remember well the tlurried, plethoric, 
elderly man, mounted on a broken-down horse, who rode up 
to me in great trepidation, with sweat streaming over his face, 
and asked me if I was going into Washington. " You may 
not recollect me, sir ; I was introduced to you at Cay-roe, in 
the hall of the hotel. I'm Dr. Bray, of the ' Chicago Tribune.' " 
I certainly did not remember him, but I did recollect that a 
despatch from Cairo appeared in the paper, announcing my 
arrival from the Soutli, and stating I complained on landing 
that my letters had been opened in the States, which was quite 
uiiti-ue and which I felt called on to deny, and supposing Dr. 
Bray to be the author I was not at all inclined to cement our 
accpiaintance, and continued my course with a bow. 

Hut the doctor wliip[)ed his steed up along-side mine, and 
went on to tell me that he was in the most terrible bodily pain 
and mental anxiety. The first on account of desuetude of 



510 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

equestrian exercise ; the other on account of the defeat of the 
Federals and the probable pursuit of the Confederates. " Oh ! 
it's dreadful to think of ! They know me well, and would show 
me no mercy. Every step the horse takes I'm in agony. I'll 
never get to Washingttm. Could you stay with me, sir ? as 
you know the road." I was moved to internal cluickling, at 
any rate, by the very prostrate condition — for he bent well over 
the saddle — of poor Dr. Bray, and so I said to him, "Don't 
be uneasy, sir. There is no fear of your being taken. The 
army is not defeated, in spite of what you see ; for there will 
be always runaways and skulkers when a retreat is ordered. 
I have not the least doubt McDowell will stand fast at Cen- 
trevilie, and rally his troops to-night on the reserve, so as to 
be in a good position to resist the enemy to-morrow. I'll have 
to push on to Washington, as I must write my letters, and I 
fear they will stop me on the bridge without the countersign, 
particularly if these runaways should outstrip us. As to your 
skin, pour a little whiskey on some melted tallow and rub it 
well in, and you'll be .all right to-morrow or next day as far as 
that is concerned." 

I actually, out of compassion to his sufferings — for he uttered 
cries now and then as though Lucina were in request — reined 
up, and walked my horse, though most anxious to get out of 
the dust and confusion of the runaways, and comforted him 
about a friend whom he missed, and for whose fate he was as 
uneasy as the concern he felt for his own woes permitted him 
to be ; suggested various modes to him of easing the jolt and 
of quickening the pace of his steed, and at last really bored 
excessively by an uninteresting and self-absorbed companion, 
who was besides detaining me needlessly on the road, I turned 
on some pretence into a wood by the side and continued my 
way as well as I could, till I got off the track, and being guided 
to the road by the dust and sliouting, I came out on it some- 
where near Fairfax Court, and there, to my surprise, dropped 
on the Doctor, who, animated by some agimcy more power- 
i'ul than the pangs of an abraded cuticle and taking advantage 
of llie road, had got thus far ahead. AVe entered the place 
together, halted at the same inn to water our horses, and then 
seeiu"- that it was settinj; on towards dusk and that the wave 
of the retreat was rolling onward in increased volume, I 
pushed on and saw no more of him. Ungrateful Bray ! Per- 
tidious Bray ! Some day, when I have time, I must tell the 
people of Chicago how Bx-ay got into Washington,- and how he 



MR. MEAGHER. 511 

left his horse and what he did with it, and how Bray behaved 
on tlie road. I dare say they who know him can guess. 

The most significant article I have seen for some time as a 
test of the taste, tone, and temper of the New York pubhc, 
judging by their most widely i-ead journal, is contained in it 
to-night. It appears that a gentleman named Muir, who is 
described as a relative of Mr. IMure the consul at New 
Orleans, was seized on the |)oint of starting for PZurope, and 
that among his papers, many of which were of a "disloyal 
ciiaracter," which is not astonishing seeing that he came from 
Charleston, was a letter written by a foreign resident in that 
city, in which he stated he had seen a letter from me to Mr. 
Bunch describing the flight at Bull Run, and adding that 
Lord Lyons remarked, when he heard of it, he would ask Mr. 
Seward whether he would not now admit the Confederates 
were a belligerent power, whereupon Maudit calls on Mr. 
Seward to demand explanations from Lord Lyons and to turn 
me out of the country, because in my letter to the " Times " I 
made the remark that the United States would probably now 
admit the South were a belligerent power. 

Such an original observation could never have occurred to 
two people — genius concerting with genius could alone have 
hammered it out. " But Maudit is not satisfied with the hu- 
miliation of Lord Lyons and the expulsion of myself — he 
absolutely insists upon a miracle, and his moral vision being 
as perverted as his physical, he declares that I must have sent 
to the British Consul at Charleston a duplicate copy of the 
letter which I furnished with so much labor and difficulty just 
in time to catch the mail by special messenger from Boston. 
" These be thy gods, O Israel ! " 

My attention was also directed to a letter from certain offi- 
cers of the disbanded 69th Regiment, who had permitted their 
Colonel to be draggt^l away a prisoner from the field of Bull 
Run. Without having read my letter, these gentlemen as- 
sumed that I had stigmatized Captain T. F. Meagher as one 
who had misconducted himself during the battle, whereas all 
I had said on the evidence of eye-witnesses was, " that in the 
rout he appeared at Centreville running across country and 
uttering exclamations in the hearing of my informant, which 
indicated that he at least was perfectly satisfied tliat the Con- 
federates had established their claims to be considered a bel- 
ligei-ent power." These officers state that Captain Meagher 
behaved extremely well up to a certain point in the engage- 



512 lilY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ment when they lost sight of him, and from which period they 
could say nothing about him. It was subsequent to that very 
time he appeared at Centreville, and long before my letter 
returned to Amei'ica giving ci'edit to Captain Meagher for 
natural gallantry in the field. I remarked that he would no 
doubt feel as much pained as any of his friends, at the ridicule 
cast upon him by the statement that he, the Captain of a com- 
pany, " Went into action mounted on a magnificent charger 
and waving a green silk flag embroidered with a golden harp 
in the face of the enemy." 

A young man wearing the Indian war medal with two 
clasps, who said his name was Maclvor Hilstock, came in 
to inquire after some unknown friend of liis. He told me he 
had been in Tomb's troop of Artillery during the Indian mu- 
tiny, and had afterwards served with the French volunteers 
during the siege of Caprera. The news of the Civil War has 
produced such an immigration of military adventurers from 
Europe that the streets of Washington are quite filled with 
medals and ribbons. The regular officers of the American 
army regard them with considerable dislike, the greater in- 
asmuch as Mr. Seward and the politicians encourage them. 
In alluding to the circumstance to General McDowell, who 
came in to see me at a late dinner, I said, " A great many 
Garibaldians are in Washington just now." " Oh," said he 
in his quiet way, " it will be quite enough for a man to prove 
that he once saw Garibaldi to satisfy us in Washington that 
he is quite fit for the command of a regiment. I have recom- 
mended a man because he sailed in the ship which Garibaldi 
came in over here, and I'm sure it will be attended to.'' 

August 27th. — Fever and ague, which Gen. McDowell 
attributes to water-melons, of which he, however, had eaten 
three times as much as I had. Swallowed many grains of 
quinine, and lay panting in the heat in-doors. Two English 
visitors, Mr. Lamy and a Captain of the 17th, called on me ; 
and, afterwards, I had a conversation with M. Mercier and 
M. Stoeckl on the aspect of affairs. They are inclined to 
look forward to a more speedy solution than I think the North 
is weak enough to accept. I believe that peace is possible in 
two years or so, but only by the concession to the South of a 
qualified independence. The naval operations of the Fed- 
erals will test the Southern mettle to the utmost. Having a 
sincere regard and liking for many of the Southerners whom 
I have met, I cannot say their cause, or its origin, or its aim, 



THE RESULT OF FEDERAL SUCCESS. 513 

recommends itself to my sympathies ; and yet I am accused of 
aiding it by every means in my power, because I do not re- 
echo the arrogant and empty boasting and insolent outbursts 
of the people in the North, who threaten, as the first-fruits of 
their success, to invade the territories subject to the British 
crown, and to outrage and humiliate our flag. 

It is melancholy enough to see this great republic tumbling 
to pieces ; one would regret it all the more but for the fact 
that it reechoed the voices of the obscene and filthy creatures 
wliich have been driven before the lash of the lictor from all 
the cities of Europe. Assuredly it was a great work, but all 
its greatness and the idea of its life was of man, not of God. 
The principle of veneration, of obedience, of subordination, 
and self-control did not exist within. Washington-worship 
could not save it. The elements of destruction lay equally 
sized, smooth, and black at its foundations, and a spark suffi- 
ces to blow the structure into the air. 

August 2S(h. — Raining. Sundry officers turned in to in- 
quire of me, who was quietly in bed at Washington, concern- 
ing certain skirmishes reported to have taken place last night. 
Sold one horse and bought another ; that is, T paid ready 
money in the latter transaction, and in the former, received an 
order from an officer on the paymaster of his i*egiment, on a 
certain day not yet arrived. 

To-day, Lord A. V. Tempest is added to the number of 
English arrivals ; he amused me by narrating his reception at 
Willard's on the night of his arrival. When he came in with 
the usual ruck of passengers, he took his turn at the book, and 
wrote down Lord Adolphus Vane Tempest, with possibly 
M. P. after it. The clerk, who was busily engaged in show- 
ing that he was perfectly indifferent to the claims of the 
crowd who were waiting at the counter for their rooms, when 
the book was finished, commenced looking over the names of 
the various persons, such as Leonidas Buggs, Rome, N. Y. ; 
Doctor Onesiphorous Bowells, D. D., Syracuse ; Olyntlius 
Craggs, Palmyra, Mo.; Washington Whilkes, Indianopolis, 
Avriting down the numbers of the rooms, and handing over the 
keys to the waiters at the same time. When he came to the 
name of the English nobleman, he said, " Vane Tempest, No. 
125." "But stop," cried Lord Adolphus. " Lycurgus Sic- 
cles," continued the clerk, " No. 23." " I insist upon it, sir," 
— broke in Lord Adolphus, — " you really must hear me. 
I protest against being put in 125. I can't go up so high." 
22* 



514 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

" Why," said the clerk, with infinite contempt. " I can put 
you at twice as l)igli — I'll give you No. 250 if I like." This 
was rather too much, and Lord Adolplius put his things into 
a cab, and drove about Washington until he got to earth in 
the two-pair back of a dentist's, for which no doubt, tout vu, 
he paid as much as for an apartment at the Hotel Bristol. 

A gathering of American officers and others, amongst whom 
was Mr. Olmsted, enabled him to form some idea of the young 
men's society of Washington, which is a strange mixture of 
politics and fighting, gossip, gayety, and a certain apprehension 
of a wrath to come for their dear republic. Here is Olmsted 
prepared to lay down his life for free speech over a united re- 
public, in one part of which his freedom of speech would lead 
to irretrievable confusion and ruin ; whilst Wise, on tlie other 
hand, seeks only to establisii a union which shall have a large 
fleet, be powerful at sea, and be able to smash up Abolitionists, 
newspaper people, and political agitators at home. 

August 29th. — It is hard to bear such a fate as befalls an 
unpopular man in the United States, because in no other coun- 
try, as De Tocqueville* remarks, is the press so powerful 
when it is unanimous. And yet he says, too, " The journal- 
ist of the United States is usually placed in a very humble 
position, with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind. 
His characteristics consist of an open and coarse appeal to 
the passions of the populace, and he habitually abandons the 
principles of political science to assail the characters of indi- 
viduals, to track them into private life, and disclose all their 
weaknesses and errors. The individuals who are already in 
possession of a high station in the esteem of their fellow-citi- 
zens are afraid to write in the newspapers, and they are thus 
deprived of the most powerful instrument wiiich they can use 
to excite the passions of the multitude to their advantage. 
The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight 
in the eyes of the public. The only use of a journal is, that 
it imparts tlie knuvvledge of certain facts ; and it is only by 
altering and distorting those facts that a journalist can contrib- 
ute to the support of his own views." When the whole of 
the press, without any exception in so far as I am aware, sets 
deliberately to work, in order to calumniate, vilify, insult, and 
abuse a man who is at once a stranger, a rival, and an Eng- 
lishman, he may expect but one result, according to De Toc- 
queville. 

* P. 200, Spencer's American edition, New Y'ork, 1858. 



THE 18th MASSACHUSETTS. 515 

The teeming anonymous letters I receive are filled with 
threats of assassination, tarring, feathering, and the like ; and 
one of the most conspicuous of literary sbirri is in perfect rap- 
ture at the notion of a new "sensation " heading, for which he 
is working as hard as he can. I have no intention to add to 
the number of his castigations. 

In the afternoon I drove to the waste grounds beyond the 
Capitol, in company with Mr. Olmsted and Captain Haworth, 
to see the 18th Massachusetts Regiment, who had just marclied 
in, and were pitching their tents very prol)ably for the first 
time. They arrived from their State with camp equipments, 
wagons, horses, harness, commissariat stores complete, and 
were clad in the blue uniform of the United States ; for the 
volunteer fjmcies in grays and greens are dying out. The men 
were uncommonly stout young fellows, with an odd, slouching, 
lounging air about some of them, however, which I could not 
quite understand till I heard one sing out, " Hallo, sergeant, 
where am I to sling my hammock in this tent ? " Many of 
them, in fact, are fishermen and sailors from Cape Cod, New 
Haven, and similar maritime places. 



CHAPTER LV. 

Personal unpopularity — American naval officers — A gun levelled at 
me in fun — Increase of odium against me — Success of the Hat- 
teras expedition — General Scott and McClellan — McClellan on 
his camp-bed — General Scott's pass refused — Prospect of an at- 
tack on Washington — Skirmishing — Anonj-moiis letters — Gen- 
eral Halleck — General McClellan and the Sabbath — Humored 
death of Jefferson Davis — Spread of my unpopularity — An offer 
for my horse — Dinner at the Legation — Discussion on Slavery. 

August ^\sL — A month during which I have been exposed 
to more calumny, falsehood, not to speak of danger, than T 
ever passed through, has been brouglit to a close. I have all 
the pains and penalties attached to the dlgito monstrari et 
dicier hie est, in the most hostile sense. On going into Wil- 
lard's the other day, I said to the clerk behind the bar, " Why 
I heard, Mr. So-and-so, you were gone ? " " Well, sir, I'm 
not. If I was, you would have lost the last man who is ready 
to say a word for you in this house, I can tell you." Scowl- 
ing faces on every side — women turning up their pretty little 
noses — people turning round in the streets, or stopping to 
stare in front of me — the proprietors of the shops where I am 
known pointing me out to others ; the words uttered, in vari- 
ous tones, " So, that's Bull-Run Russell ! " — for, oddly enough, 
the Amei-icans seem to think that a disgrace to their arms be- 
comes diminished by fixing the name of the scene as a sobriquet 
on one who described it — these, with caricatures, endless 
fiilselioods, rumors of duels, and the like, form some of the 
little desagremens of one who was so unfortunate as to assist 
at the retreat, the first he had ever seen, of an army which it 
would in all respects have suited him much better to have 
seen victorious. 

I dined with Lieutenant Wise, and met Captain Dahlgren, 

Captain Davis, U. S. N., Captain Foote, U. S. N., and Colonel 

Fletcher Webster,* son of the great American statesman, now 

commanding a regiment of volunteers. The latter has a fine 

* Since killed in action. 



AMERICAN NAVAL OFFICERS. 517 

head and face ; a full, deep eye ; is quaint and dry in his con- 
versation, and a poet, I should think, in heart and soul, if out- 
ward and visible signs may be relied on. The naval captains 
were excellent specimens of the accomplished and able men 
who belong to the United States Navy. Foote, who is desig- 
nated to the command of the flotilla wliich is to clear the Mis- 
sissippi downwards, will, I am certain, do good service — a 
calm, energetic, skilful officer. Dahlgren, who, like all men 
with a sy.stem, very properly watches everything which bears 
upon it, took occasion to call for Captain Foote's testimony to 
the fact, that he battered down a six-foot granite wall in China 
with Dahlgren shells. It will run hard against the Confeder- 
ates when they get such men at work on the rivers and coasts, 
for they seem to understand their business thoroughly, and all 
they are not quite sure of is the readiness of the land forces 
to cooperate with their expeditionary movements. Incident- 
ally I learned from the conversation — and it is a curious 
illustration of the power of the President — that it was he 
who ordered the attack on Charleston harbor, or, to speak 
with more accuracy, the movement of the armed squadron to 
relieve Sumter by force, if necessary; and that he came to 
the conclusion it was feasible principally from reading the ac- 
count of the attack on Kinburn by the allied fleets. There 
was certainly an immense disproportion between the relative 
means of attack and defence in the two cases ; but, at all 
events, the action of the Confederates prevented the attempt. 
September \st. — Took a ride early this morning over the 
Long Bridge. As I was passing out of the earthwork called 
a fort on tlie hill, a dirty German soldier called out from the 
parapet, " Pull-Run Russell ! you shall never write Pull's Runs 
again," and at the same time cocked his piece and levelled it 
at me, I immediately rode round into the fort, the fellow still 
presenting his firelock, and asked him what he meant, at the 
same time calling for the sergeant of the guard, who came at 
once, and, at my request, arrested the man, who recovered 
arms, and said, "It was a choake — I vant to freeken Pull- 
Run Russell." However, as his rifle was capped and loaded, 
and on full cock, with his finger on the trigger, I did not quite 
see the fun of it, and I accordingly had the man marched to 
the tent of the officer, who promised to investigate the case, 
and make a formal report of it to the brigadier, on my return 
to lay the circumstances before him. On reflection I resolved 
that it was best to let the matter drop ; the joke might spread, 



518 JIY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and it was quite unpleasant enough as it was to bear the inso- 
lent looks and scowling faces of' the guards at the posts, to 
whom I was obliged to exhibit my pass whenever I went out 
to ride. 

On ray return I heard of the complete success of the Hat- 
teras expedition, which shelled out and destroyed some sand 
batteries guarding the entrance to the great inland sea and 
navigation called Pamlico Sound, in North Carolina, furnish- 
ing access to coasters for many miles into the Confederate 
States, and most useful to them in forwarding supplies and 
keeping up communications throughout. The force was com- 
manded by General Butler, who has come to Washington with 
the news, and has already made his speech to the mob outside 
Willard's. I called down to see him, but he had gone over to 
call on the President. The people were jubilant, and one 
might have supposed Hatteras was the key to Richmond or 
Charleston, from the way they spoke of this unparalleled ex- 
ploit. 

Thei'e is a little French gentleman here against whom the 
fates bear heavily. I have given him employment as an 
amanuensis and secretary for some time back, and he tells me 
many things concerning the talk in the city which I do not 
hear myself, from which it would seem that there is an in- 
crease of ill-feeling towards me every day, and that I am a 
convenient channel for concentrating all the abuse and hatred 
so long cherished against England. I was a little tickled by 
an account he gave me of a distinguished lady, who sent for 
him to give French lessons, in order that she might become 
equal to her high position in mastering the difficulties of the 
courtly tongue. I may mention the fact, as it was radiated by 
the press through all the land, that Mrs. M. N., having once 
on a time " been proficient in the language, has forgotten it in 
the lapse of years, but has resolved to renew her studies, that 
she may better discharge the duties of her elevated station." 
The master went to the house and stated his terms to a lady 
whom he saw there ; but as she marchanded a good deal 
over small matters of cents, he never supposed he was deal- 
ing with the great lady, and therefore- made a small reduction 
in his terms, which encouraged the enemy to renew the assault 
till he stood firmly on three shillings a lesson, at which point 
the lady left him, with tiie intimation that she would consider 
the matter and let him know. And now, the licentiate tells 
me, it has become known he is my private secretary, he is not 



THE TWO GENERALS. 519 

considered eligible to do avoir and etre for the satisfaction of 
the good lady, who really is far better than her friends de- 
scribe her to be. 

Septemher '2d. — It would seem as if the North were per- 
fectly destitute of common sense. Here they are as rampant 
because they have succeeded with an overwhelming fleet in 
shelling out the defenders of some poor unfinished earthworks, 
on a spit of sand on the coast of Nortli Carolina, as if they 
had already crushed the Southern rebellion. They affect to 
consider this achievement a countei'poise to Bull Run. 

Surely the press cannot represent the feelings of the staid 
and tliiniving masses of the Nortliern States ! The success is 
unquestionably useful to the Federalists, but it no more adds 
to tlieir chances of crushing the Confederacy, than shooting 
ott; the end of an elephant's tail contributes to the hunter's 
capture of the animaL 

An officious little person, who was buzzing about here as 
correspondent of a London newspaper, made himself agree- 
able by coming with a caricature of my humble self at the 
battle of Bull Run, in a laborious and most unsuccessful imi- 
tation of " Punch," in which I am represented with rather a 
flattering face and figure, seated before a huge telescope, sur- 
rounded by bottles of London stout, and looking at the fight. 
This is supposed to be very humorous and amusing, and my 
good-natured friend was rather astonished when I cut it out 
and inserted it carefully in a scrap-book, opposite a sketch 
from fancy of the New York Fire Zouaves charging a battery 
and routing a regiment of cavalry, which appeared last week 
in a much more imaginative and amusing periodical, which 
aspires to describe with pen and pencil the actual current 
events of the war. 

Going out for my usual ride to-day, I savv General Scott,, 
between two aide-de-camps, slowly pacing homewards froml 
the War Office. He is still Commander-in-Chief of the army, 
and affects to direct movements and to control the disposition ] 
of the troops, but a power greater than his increases steadily 
at General McClellan's head-quarters. For my own part I 
confess that General McClellan does not ap[)ear to me a man 
of action, or, at least, a man who intends to act as speedily as 
the crisis demands. He should be out with his army across 
the Potomac, living among his generals, studying the compo- 
sition of his army, investigating its defects, and, above all, 
showing himself to the men as soon afterwards as possible, if 



520 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

he cannot be with them at the time, in the small affairs which 
constantly occur along the front, and never permitting them to 
receive a blow without taking care that they give at least two 
in return. General Scott, ^a/w yrac<a membra labore, would 
do all the work of departments and superintendence admira- 
bly well ; but, as Montesquieu taught long ago, faction and 
intrigue are the cancers which peculiarly eat into the body 
politic of republics, and McClellan fears, no doubt, that his 
absence from the capital, even though he went but across the 
river, would animate his enemies to undermine and supplant 
him. 

1 have heard several people say lately, " I wish old Scott 
would go away," by which they mean that they would be 
happy to strike him down when his back was turned, but 
feared his personal influence with the President and his Cabi- 
net. Two months ago and his was the most honored name in 
tlie States : one was sickened by the constant repetition of 
elaborate plans, in which the General was represented playing 
the part of an Indian juggler, and holding an enormous boa 
constrictor of a Federal army in his hands, which he was 
preparing to let go as soon as he had coiled it completely 
round the fi'ightened Secessionist rabbit ; " now none so poor 
to do him reverence." Hard is the fate of those who serve 
republics. The officers who met the old man in the street 
to-day passed him by without a salute or mark of recognition, 
although he wore his uniform coat, with yellow lapels and 
yellow sash ; and one of a group which came out of a restau- 
rant close to the General's house, exchiimed, almost in his 
hearing, " Old fuss-and-feathers don't look first-rate to-day." 

In tlie evening I went with a Scotch gentleman, who was 
formerly acquainted with General McClelhm when he was 
superintendent of the Central Illinois Kailway, to his head- 
quarters, which are in the house of Captain Wilkes at the 
corner of President Square, near Mr. Seward's and not far 
from the spot where Genei-al Sickles shot down the unhappy 
man who had temporarily disturbed the peace of his domestic 
rehitions. The parlors were full of officers, smoking, reading 
the papers, and writing, and after a short conversation with 
General Marcy, Chief of the Staff, Van Vliet, aide-de-camp 
of the Commander-in-Chief, led the way up-stairs to the top 
of the house, where we found General McClellan, just returned 
from a long ride, and seated in his shirt-sleeves on the side of 
his camp-bed. He looked better than I have yet seen him, 



GENERAL M'CLELLAN AT HOME. 521 

/ 
for his dress showed to advantage the powerful, compact for- 
mation of his figure, massive throat, well-set head, and muscu- 
lar energy of his frame. Nothing could be more agreeable or 
easy than his manner. In his clear, dark-blue eye was no 
trace of uneasiness or hidden purpose ; but his mouth, covered 
by a short, thick mustache, rarely joins in the smile that 
overspreads his face when he is animated by telling or hear- 
ing some matter of interest. Telegraph wires ran all about 
the house, and as we sat round tiie General's table, despatches 
were repeatedly brought in from the generals in the front. 
Sometimes McClellan laid down his cigar and went off to 
study a large map of the position, which was fixed to the wall 
close to the head of his bed ; but more frequently the contents 
of the despatches caused him to smile or to utter some excla- 
mation, which gave one an idea that he did not attach much 
importance to tlie news, and had not great faith in the reports 
received from his subordinate officers, who are always under 
the impression that the enemy are coming on in force. 

It is plain the General has got no high opinion of volunteer 
officers and soldiers. In addition to unsteadiness in action, 
which arises from want of confidence in the officers as much 
as from any other cause, the men labor under the great defect 
of exceeding rashness, a contempt for tiie most ordinary pre- 
cautions and a liability to unaccountable alarms and credulous- 
ness of false report; but, admitting all these circumstances, 
McClellan has a soldier's faith in gros bataillons, and sees no 
doubt of ultimate success in a military point of view, provided 
the pohticians keep quiet, and, charming men as they are, 
cease to meddle with things they don't understand. Although 
some very good officers have deserted the United States army 
and are now with the Confederates, a very considerable ma- 
jority of West Point officers have adhered to the Federals. 
I am satisfied, by an actual inspection of the lists, tliat tbe 
Northerners retain the same preponderance in officers who 
have received a military education, as they possess in wealth 
and other means, and resources for carrying on the war. 

The General consumes tobacco largely, and not only smokes 
cigars, but indulges in the more naked beauties of a quid. From 
tobacco we wandered to the Crimea, and thence went half 
round the world, till we halted before the Virginian watch- 
fires, which these good volunteers will insist on lighting under 
the very noses of the enemy's picket ; nor was it till late we 
retired, leaving the General to his well-earned repose. 



522 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

General McClellan took the situation of affairs in a very 
easy and pliilosophical spirit. According to his own map and 
showing, the enemy not only overlap|)ed his lines from the 
batteries by which they blockaded the Potomac on the right, 
to their extreme left on the river above Washington, but have 
established themselves in a kind of salient angle on his front, 
at a place called Munson's Hill, where their flag waved from 
intrenchments within sight of the Capitol. However, from an 
observation he made, I imagined that the General would make 
an effort to recover his lost ground ; at any rate, beat up the 
enemy's quarters, in order to see what they were doing; and 
he promised to send an orderly round and let me know ; so, 
before I retired, I gave orders to my groom to have " Walker " 
in readiness, 

September 3d. — Notwithstanding the extreme heat, I went 
out early this morning to the Chain Bridge, from which the 
reconnoissance hinted at last night would necessarily start. 
This bridge is about four and a half or five miles above Wash- 
ington, and crosses the river at a picturesque spot almost de- 
serving the name of a gorge, with high banks on both sides. 
It is a light aerial structure, and spans the river by broad 
arches, from which the view reminds one of Higiiland or 
Tyrolean scenery. The road from the city passes through a 
squalid settlement of European squatters, who in habitation, 
dress, appearance, and possibly civilization, are quite as bad 
as any negroes on any Southern plantation I have visited. 
The camps of a division lie just beyond, and a gawky sentry 
from New England, with whom I had some conversation, 
amused me by saying that the Colonel " was a darned deal 
more aff'eered of the Irish squatters taking off" his poultry at 
niglit than he was of the Secessioners ; anyways, he puts out 
more sentries to guard them than he has to look after the 
others." 

From the Chain Bridge I went some distance towards 
Falls Church, until I was stopped by a picket, the officer of 
which refused to recognize General Scott' s pass. " I guess 
the General's a dead man, sir." " Is he not Commander-in- 
Chief of the United States army?" " Well, I believe that's 
a fact, sir; but you had better argue that point with McClel- 
lan. He is ouf boy, and I do believe he'd like to let the Lon- 
don ' Times ' know liow we Green Mountain boys can fight, if 
they don't know alrt'ady. But all passes are stop[)ed anyhow, 
and I had to turn back a congressman this very morning, and 



FOREIGN MINISTERS ON THE WAR. 523 

lucky for liim it was, because the Sechessers are just half a 
mile in front of us." On my way back by the u])per road I 
passed a farmer's house, which was occujiied by some Federal 
officers, and tliere, seated in tlie veranda, with liis legs cocked 
over the railings, was IMr. Lincoln, in a felt hat, and a loose 
gray shooting-coat and long vest, " letting off," as the papers 
say, one of his jokes, to judge by his attitude and the laughter 
of the officers around him, utterly indifferent to the Confeder- 
ate flag floating from Miinson's Hill. 

Just before midnight a considerable movement of troops 
took place tlirough the streets, and I was about starting off to 
ascertain the cause, when I received information that General 
McClellan was only sending off two brigades and four batteries 
to the Chain Bridge to strengthen his right, which was menaced 
by the enemy. I retired to bed, in order to be ready for any 
battle which might take place to-morrow, but was roused up 
by voices beneath my window, and going out on the veranda, 
could not help chuckling at the appearance of three foreign 
ministers and a banker, in the street below, who had come 
round to inquire, in some perturbation, the cause of the noc- 
turnal movement of men and guns, and seemed little inclined 
to credit my assurances that nothing more serious than a re- 
connoissance was contemplated. The ministers were in high 
spirits at the prospect of an attack on Washington. Such 
agreeable people are the governing party of the United States 
at present, that there is only one representative of a foreign 
power here who would not like to see them flying before 
Southern bayonets. The banker, perhaps, would have liked 
a little time to set his affairs in order. " When will the sack- 
ing begin ? " cried the ministers. " We must hoist our flags." 
'* Tlie Confederates respect private property, I suppose ? " As 
to flags, be it remai-ked that Lord Lyons has none to display, 
having lent his to Mr. Seward, who required it for some festive 
demonstration. 

September Ath. — I rode over to the Chain Bridge again 
witii Captain liaworth this morning at seven o'clock, on the 
chance of there being a big flght, as the Americans say ; but 
there was only some slight skirmishing going on ; dropping 
shots now and then. Walker, excited by the reminiscences 
of Bull Run noises, perfojmed most remarkable feats, one of 
tlie most frequent of which was turning right round when at 
full trot or canter and then kicking violently. He also gal- 
loped in a most lively way down a road which, in winter, is 



524 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

the bed of a torrent, and jumped along among (he boulders 
and stones in an agile, cat-like manner, to the great delecta- 
tion of my companion. 

The morning was intensely hot, so I was by no means indis- 
posed to get back to cover again. Nothing would persuade 
people there was not serious tigliting somewhere or other. I 
went down to the Long Bridge, and was stopped by the sentry, 
so I produced General Scott's pass, wiiich I kept always as a 
dernier ressori, but the officer on duty here also refused it, 
as passes were suspended. I returned and referred the mat- 
ter to Colonel Cullum who consulted General Scott, and in- 
formed me that the pass must be considered as perfectly valid, 
not having been revoked by the General, who, as Lieutenant- 
General commanding the United States army, was senior to 
every other officer, and could only have his pass revoked by 
the President himself. Now it was quite pUiin that it would 
do me no good to have an altercation with the sentries at 
every post in order to have the satisfaction of reporting the 
matter to General Scott. I, therefore, procured a letter from 
Colonel Cullum stating, in writing, what he said in words, and 
with that and the pass went to General McClellan's head- 
quarters, where I was told by his aides the General was en- 
gaged in a kind of council of war. I sent up my papers, and 
Major Hudson, of his staff, came down after a short time and 
said, that " General McClellan thought it would be much bet- 
ter if General Scott had given me a new special pass, but as 
General Scott had thought fit to take the present course on 
his own responsibility, General McClellan could not interfere 
in the matter," whence it may be inferred there is no very 
pleasant ieeling between head-quarters of the army of the Po- 
tomac and head-quarters of the army of the United States. 

1 went on to the Navy Yard, where a look-out man, who can 
command the whole of the country to Munson's Hill, is sta- 
tioned, and 1 heard from Captain Dahlgren that there was no 
fighting whatever. There were columns of smoke visible from 
Capilol Hill, which the excited spectators declared were caused 
by artillery and musketry, but my glass resolved them into 
emanations from a vast extent of hanging wood and brush 
which the Federals were burning in order to clear their front. 
However, people wei-e so positive as to hearing cannonades 
and volleys of musketry that we went out to the reservoir hill 
at Georgetown, and gazing over the debatable land of Vir- 
ginia — which, by the way, is very beautiful these summer 



GENERAL HALLECK. 525 

sunsets — became thoroughly satisfied of the delusion. Met 
Van Vliet as I was returning, who had just seen the reports 
at hea(]-f(uarters, and averred there was no fighting whatever. 
My landlord had a very diffei'ent story. His friend, an hos- 
pital steward, " had seen ninety wounded men carried into one 
ward from over the river, and believed the Federals had lost 
lUOO killed and wounded and twenty-five guns." 

Sept. ot.Ii. — Raining all day. McClellan abandoned his 
intention of in8|)ecting the lines, and I remained in, writing. 
The anonymous letters still continue. Received one from 
an unmistakable Thug to-day, with the death's-head, cross- 
bones, and cofiiii, in the most orthodox style of national-school 
drawing. 

The event of the day was the appearance of the President 
in the Avenue in a suit of black, and a parcel in his hand, 
walking umbrella-less in the rain. Mrs. Lincoln has returned, 
and the worthy " Executive " will no longer be obliged to go 
" browsing round," as he says, among his friends at diimer- 
time. He is working away at money matters with energy, 
but has been much disturbed in his course of studies by Gen- 
eral Fremont's sudden outburst in the West, which proclaims 
emancipation, and draws out the arrow which the President 
intended to discharge from his own bow. 

Sept. 6th. — At 3*30, p. m., General McClellan sent over 
an orderly to say he was going across the river, and would be 
gla<l of my company ; but I was just finishing my letters for 
England, and had to excuse myself for the moment ; and when 
I was ready, the General and staff had gone ventre a terre 
into Virginia. After post, paid my respects to General Scott, 
who is al)Out to retire from the command on his full-[)ay of 
about £3500 per annum, which is awarded to him on account 
of his long services. 

A new Major-General — Halleck — has been picked up in 
California, and is highly praised by General Scott and by 
Colonel CuUum, with whom 1 had a long talk about the gen- 
erals on both sides. Halleck is a West Point ofiicer, and has 
published some works on military science which are highly 
esteemed in the States. Before California became a State, he 
was secretary to the governor or officer commanding the terri- 
tory, and eventually left the service and became a lawyer in 
the district, where he has amassed a large fortune. He is a 
man of great ability, very calm, practical, earnest, and cold, 
devoted to the Union — a soldier, and something more. Lee 



526 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

is considered the ablest man on the Federal side, but he is 
plow and timid. "Joe" Johnson is their best sti-ateirist. Beau- 
regard is nobody and nothing — so ihink lliej at head-quarters. 
All of them together are not equal to Halleck, who is to be 
employed in the West. 

] dined at th-e Legation, where were the Russian Minister, 
the Secretary of the French Legation, the representative of 
New Granada, and others. As I was anxious to explain to 
General McClellan the reason of ray inability to go out with 
him, I called at his quarters about eleven o'clock, and found he 
had just returned from his ride. He received me in his shirt, 
in his bed-room at the top of the house, introduced me to 
General Burnside — a soldierly, intelligent-looking man, with 
a very lofty forehead, and uncommonly bright dark eyes ; and 
we had some conversation about matters of ordinary interest 
for some time, till General McClellan called me into an ante- 
chamber, where an officer was writing a despatch, which he 
handed to the General. " I wish to ask your opinion as to 
the wording of this order. It is a matter of importance. I 
see that the men of this army, Mr. Russell, disregard the Sab- 
bath, and neglect the worship of God ; and I am resolved to 
put an end to such neglect, as far as I can. I have, therefore, 
directed the following order to be drawn up, which will be 
promulgated to-morrow." The General spoke with much ear- 
nestness, and with an air which satisfied me of his sincerity. 
The officer in waiting read the order, in which, at the Gen- 
eral's request, I suggested a few alterations. The General 
told me he had received " sure information that Beauregard 
has packed up all his baggage, struck his tents, and is evidently 
prepai'ing for a movement, so you may be wanted at a mo- 
ment's notice." General Burnside returned to my rooms, in 
company with Mr. Lamy, and we sat up discoursing of Bull's 
Run, in which his brigade was the first engaged in front. He 
spoke like a man of sense and a soldier of the action, and 
stood up for the conduct of some regiments, though he could 
not palliate the final disorder. The papers circulate rumors 
of " Jeff Davis's death ; " nay, accounts of his buriah The 
public does not believe, but buys all the same. 

Sept. 1th. — Yes ; '• JeflT Davis must be dead." There are 
some touching lamentations in the obituary notices over his 
fate in the other world. Meanwhile, however, his spirit see.ns 
quite alive; for there is an absolute certainty that the Confed- 
erates are coming to attack the Capitol. Lieut. Wise and 



UNPOPULARITY AND THE PRESS. 527 

Lord A. Van Tempest argued the question whether the assault 
would be made by a flank movement above or direct in front ; 
and Wise maintained the latter thesis with vigor not dispro- 
portioned to the energy with whiclijiis opponent demonstrated 
that the Confederates could not be such madmen as to march 
up to the Federal batteries. There is actually "a battle"' 
raging (in the front of the Philadelphia newspaper offices) 
this instant — Populns vult decipi — decipiatur. 

Sept. 8f/i. — Rode over to Arlington House. Went round 
by Acjueduct Bridge, Georgetown, and out across Chain Bridge 
to Brigadier Smith's head-quarters, which are established in a 
comfortable house belonging to a Secessionist farmer. The 
General belongs to the regular army, and, if one can judge 
from externals, is a good officer. A libation of Bourbon and 
water was poured out to friendship, and we rode out with 
Captain Poe, of the Topographical Engineers, a hard-working, 
eager fellow, to examine the trench which the men were engaged 
in throwing up to defend the position they have just occupied on 
some high knolls, now cleared of wood, and overlooking ravines 
which stretch towards Falls Church and Vienna. Everything 
about the camp looked like fighting: Napoleon guns planted 
on the road ; Griffin's battery in a field near at hand ; moun- 
tain howitzers unlirabered ; strong pickets and main-guards ; 
the five thousand men all kept close to their camps, and two 
regiments, in spite of McClellan's order, engaged on the 
trenches, which were already mounted with field-guns. Gen- 
eral Smith, like most officers, is a Democrat and strong, anti- 
Abolitionist, and it is not too much to suppose he would fight 
any rather than Virginians. As we were riding about, it got 
out among the men that I was present, and I was regarded 
with no small curiosity, staring, and some angry looks. The 
men do not know what to make of it when they see their 
officers in the company of one whom they are I'eading about 
in the papers as the most &c., &c., the world ever saw. And, 
indeed, I know well enough, so great is their passion and so 
easily are they misled, that without such safeguard the men 
would in all probability carry out the suggestions of one of 
their particular guides, who has undergone so many cuffings 
that he rather likes them. Am I not the cause of the disaster 
at Bull Run ? 

Going home, I met Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in their new open 
carriage. The President was not so good-humored, nor Mrs. 
Lincoln so attable, in their return to my salutation as usual. 



528 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

My unpopularity is certainly spreading upwards and down- 
wards at the same time, and all because I could not turn the 
battle of Bull's Run into a Federal victory, because I would 
not pander to the vanity ^f the people, and, least of all, be- 
cause I will not bow m}-^ knee to the degraded creatures who 
have made the very name of a free press odious to honorable 
men. Many of the most foul-mouthed and rabid of the men 
who revile me because I have said the Union as it was never 
can be restored, are as fully satisfied of the truth of that state- 
ment as I am. They have written far severer things of their 
army than I have ever done. They have slandered tlieir sol- 
diers and their olHcers as I have never done. They have fed 
the worst passions of a morbid democracy, till it can neither 
see nor hear ; but they shall never have the satisfaction of 
either driving me from my post or inducing me to deviate a 
liair's-breadth from the course I have resolved to pursue, as I 
have done before in other cases — greater and graver, as far 
as I was concerned, than this. 

Sept. 9(h. — This morning, as I was making the most of my 
toilet after a ride, a gentleman in the uniform of a United 
States officer came up-stairs, and marched into my sitting- 
room, saying he wished to see me on business. I thought it 
was one of my numerous friends coming with a message from 
some one who was going to avenge Bull's Run on me. So, 
going out as speedily as I could, I bowed to the officer, and 
asked his business. " I've come here because I'd like to trade 
with you about that chestnut horse of yours." I replied that 
I could only state what price I had given for him, and say 
that I would take the same, and no less. " What may you 
have given for him ? " I discovered that my friend had been 
already to the stable and ascertained the price from the groom, 
who considered himself bound in duty to name a few dollars 
beyond the actual sum I had given, for when I mentioned the 
price, the countenance of the man of war relaxed into a grim 
smile. " Well, I reckon that help of yours is a pretty smart 
chap, though he does come from your side of the world." 
When the preliminaries had been arranged, the officer an- 
nounced that he had come on behalf of another officer to offiir 
me an order on his paymaster, payable at some future date, 
for the animal, which he desin^d, however, to take away upon 
the spot. The transaction was rather amusing, but I con- 
sented to let the horse go, much to the indignation and uneasi- 
ness of the Scotch servant, who regarded it as contrary to all 
the principles of morality in horse-flesh. 



PASSES SOUTH KEFUSED. 529 

Lord A. V. Tempest and another British subject, who ap- 
plied to Mr. Seward to-day for leave to go South, were curtly 
refused. The Foreign Secretary is not very well pleased 
with us all just now, and there has beeja some little uneasiness 
between him and Lord Lyons, in consequence of representa- 
tions respecting -an improper excess in the United States 
marine on the lakes, contrary to treaty. The real cause, 
perhaps, of Mr. Seward's annoyance is to be found in the 
exaggerated statements of the American papers respecting 
British reinforcements for Canada, which, in truth, are the 
ordinary reliefs. These small questions in the present condi- 
tion of affairs cause irritation ; but if the United States were 
not distracted by civil war, they would be seized eagerly as 
pretexts to excite the popular mind against Great Britain. 

The great difficulty of all, which must be settled some day, 
relates to San Juan ; and every American I have met is per- 
suaded Great Britain is in the wrong, and must consent to a 
compromise or incur the risk of war. The few English in 
Washington,.! think, were all present at dinner at the Lega- 
tion to-day. 

Sept. 10th. — A party of American officers passed the 
evening where I dined — all, of course. Federals, but holding 
very diffi^rent views. A Massachusetts Colonel, named Gor- 
don, asserted that slavery was at the root of every evil which 
afflicted the Republic ; that it was not necessary in the South 
or anywhere else, and that the South maintained the institu- 
tion for political as well as private ends. A Virginian Cap- 
tain, on the contrary, declared that slavery was in itself good ; 
that it could not be dangerous, as it was essentially conserva- 
tive, and desired nothing better than to be left alone ; but 
that the Northern fanatics, jealous of the superior political in- 
fluence and ability of Southern statesman, and sordid Protec- 
tionists who wished to bind the South to take their goods ex- 
clusively, perpetrated all the mischief. An officer of the 
District of Columbia assigned all the misfortunes of the coun- 
ry to universal suffrage, to foreign immigration, and to these 
alone. Mob-law revolts well-educated men, and people who 
pride themselves because their fathei'S lived in the country 
before them, will not be content to see a foreigner who has 
been but a short time on the soil exercising as great influence 
over the fate of the country as himself. A contest will, there- 
fore, always be going on between those representing the oli- 
garchical principle and the pollarchy ; and the i-esult must be 
23 



530 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

disruption sooner or later, because there is no power in a 
republic to restrain the struggling factions which the weight 
of the crown compresses in monarchical countries. 

I dined with a namesake — a major in the United States 
Marines — with whom I had become accidentally acquainted, 
in consequence of our letters frequently clmnging hands, and 
spent an agreeable evening in company with naval and mili- 
tary officers ; not the less so because our host had some mar- 
vellous Madeira, dating back from the Conquest — I mean of 
Washington. Several of the officers spoke in the highest 
terms of General Banks, whom they call a most remarkable 
man ; but so jealous are the politicians that he will never be 
permitted, they think, to get a fair chance of distinguishing 
himself. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

A Crimean acquaintance — Personal abuse of myself — Close firing — 
A reconnoissance — Major-General Bell — The Prince de Joinvilla 
and his nephews — American estimate of Louis Napoleon — Arrest 
of members of the Marj'land Legislature — Life at Washington — 
War cries — News from tiie Far West — Journej' to the Western 
States — Along the Susquehannah and Juniata — Chicago — Sport 
in the prairie — AiTCSted for shooting on Sunday — The town of 
Dwight — Return to Washington — Mr. Seward and myself. 

September Wth. — A soft- voiced, round-faced, rather good- 
looking young man, with downy moustache, came to ray room, 
and introduced himself this morning as Mr. H. H. Scott, for- 
merly of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment. " Don't you remem- 
ber me ? I often met you at Cathcart's Hill. I had a big 
dog, if you I'emember, which used to be about the store be- 
longing to our camp." And so he rattled on, talking of old 
Street and young Jones with immense volubility, and telling 
me how he had gone out to India with his regiment, had mar- 
ried, lost his wife, and was now travelling for the benefit of 
his health and to see the country. All the time I was trying 
to remember his face, but in vain. At last came the purport 
of his visit. He had been taken ill at Baltimore, and was 
obliged to stop at an hotel, which had cost him more than he 
had anticipated ; he had just received a letter from his father, 
which required his immediate return, and he had telegraphed 
to New York to secure his place in the next steamer. Mean- 
time, he was out of money, and required a small loan to enable 
him to go back and prepare for his journey, and of course he 
would send me the money the moment he arrived in New 
York. I wrote a check for the amount he named, with 
which Lieutenant or Captain Scott departed ; and my sus- 
picions were rather aroused by seeing him beckon a remark- 
ably ill-favored person at the other side of the way, who 
crossed over and inspected the little slip of paper held out for 
his approbation, and then, taking his friend under the arm, 
walked off rapidly toward the bank. 



532 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

The papers still continue to abuse me faute de tnieux , 
there are essays written about me ; I am threatened with 
several farces ; I have been lectui'ed upon at Willard's by a 
professor of rhetoric ; and I am a stock subject with the 
leaden penny funny journals, for articles and caricatures. 
Yesterday I was abused on the ground that I spoke badly of 
those who treated me hospitably. The man who wrote the 
words knew they were false, because I have been most care- 
ful in my correspondence to avoid any thing of the kind. A 
favointe accusation, indeed, which Americans make against 
foreigners is, " that they have abused our hospitality," which of- 
tentimes consists in permitting them to live in the country at all 
at their own expense, paying their way at hotels and else- 
where, without the smallest suspicion that they were receiving 
any hospitality whatever. 

To-day, for instance, there comes a lively corporal of artil- 
lery, John Robinson, who quotes Sismondi, Guizot, and others, 
to prove that I am the worst man in the world ; but his 
fiercest invectives are directed against me on the ground that I 
speak well of those people who give me dinners ; the fact 
being, since I came to America, that I have given at least as 
many dinners to Americans as I have received from them. 

Just as I was sitting down to my desk for the remainder of 
the day, a sound caught my ear which, repeated again and 
again, could not be mistaken by accustomed organs, and plac- 
ing ray face close to the windows, I perceived the glass 
vibrate to the distant discharge of cannon, W'hich, evidently, 
did not proceed from a review or a salute. Unhappy man 
that I am ! here is Walker lame, and my other horse can-ied 
off by the West-country captain. However, the sounds were 
so close that in a few moments I was driving off toward the 
Chain Bridge, taking the uj)per road, as that by the canal has 
become a sea of mud filled with deep holes. 

In the windows, on the house-tops, even to the ridges par- 
tially overlooking Virginia, people were standing in high ex- 
citement watching the faint puffs of smoke which rose at 
intervals above the tree-tops, and at every report a murmur 
— exclamations of " There, do you hear that ? " — ran 
through the crowd. The driver, as excited as any one else, 
urged liis horses at full speed, and we arrived at the Chain 
Bridge just as General McCall — a white haired, rather mili- 
tary-looking old man — appeared at the head of his column, 
hurrying down to the Chain Bridge from the Maryland side, 



ANOTHER FEDERAL VICTORY. 533 

to reinforce Smith, who was said to be heavily engaged with 
the enemy. But by this time the firing had ceased, and just 
as the artillery of" the General's column commenced defiling 
through the mud, into which the guns sank to the naves of 
the wheels, the head of another column appeared, entering the 
bridge from the Virginia side with loud cheers, which were 
taken up again and again. The carriage was halted to allow 
the 2nd Wisconsin to [)ass ; and a more broken-down, white- 
faced, sick, and weakly set of poor wretches I never beheld. 
The heavy rains had washed the very liie out of them ; their 
clothing was in rags, their shoes were broken, and multitudes 
were footsore. They cheered, nevertheless, or wliooped, and 
there was a ti'emendous clatter of tongues in the ranks con- 
cerning their victory ; but as the men's faces and hands were 
not blackened by powder, they could have seen little of the 
engagement. Captain Foe came along with despatches for 
General McClellan, and gave me a correct account of the 
affliir. 

All this noise and firing and excitement, I found simply 
arose out of a reconnoissance made toward Lewinsville, by 
Smith and a part of his brigade, to beat up the enemy's posi- 
tion, and en-able the topographical enginecu's to procure some 
information respecting the country. The Confederates worked 
down upon their left flaidv with artillery, which they got into 
position at an easy range without being observed, intending,' 
no doubt, to cut off tlxiir retreat and capture or destroy the 
whole force ; but, fortunately for the reconnoitring party, the 
im[)ati(!nce of their enemies led them to oj)en lire too soon. 
The Federals got their guns into position also, and covered 
their retreat, whilst reinforcements poured out of camp to 
their assistance, " and I doubt not," said Foe, " but that they 
will have an encounter of a tremendous scalping match in all 
the papers to-morrow, although we have only six or seven 
men killed, and twelve wounded." As we approached Wash- 
ington the citizens, as they are called, wei'e waving Federal 
banners out of the windows and rejoicing in a great victory ; 
at le;ist, the inhabitants of the inferior sort of houses. Re- 
spectability in Wasliington means Secession. 

Mr. Monson told me that my distressed young British sub- 
ject, Captain Scott, had called on him at the Legation early 
this morning for the little pecuniary hel]) which had been I 
fear, wisely refused thei'e, and which was granted by me. 
The States have become, indeed, more than ever the cloacina 



534 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

gentium, and Great Bi-itain contributes its full quota to the 
stream. 

Thus time passes away in expectation of some onward 
movement, or desperate attack, or important strategical move- 
ments ; and night comes to reassemble a few friends, Ameri- 
cans and English, at my rooms or elsewhere, to talk over the 
disappointed hopes of the day, to speculate on the future, to 
chide each dull delay, and to part with a hope that to-morrow 
would be more lively than to-day. Major- General Bell, who 
commanded the Royals in the Crimea, and who has passed 
some half century in active service, turned up in Washington, 
and has been courteously received by the American author- 
ities. He joined to-night one of our small reunions, and was 
infinitely puzzled to detect the lines which separated one man's 
country and opinions from those of the other. 

September l\th. — Captain Johnson, Queen's messenger, 
started with despatches for England from tlie Legation to-day, 
to the regret of our little party. I observe by the papers 
certain wiseacres in Philadelphia have got up a petition 
against me to Mr. Seward, on the ground that I have been 
guilty of treasonable practices and misrepresentations in my 
letter dated August 10th. There is also to be a lecture on 
the 17th at Willard's by the Professor of Rhetoric, to a vol- 
unteer regiment, which the President is invited to attend — 
the subject being myself. 

There is an absolute nullity of events, out of which the 
New York papers endeavor, in vain, to extract a caput mor~ 
tuum of sensation headings. The Prince of Joinville and his 
two nephews, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres, 
have been here for some days, and have been received with 
marked attention by the President, Cabinet, politicians and 
military. The Prince has come with the intention of placing 
his son at the United States Naval Academy, and his nephews 
with the head-quarters of the Federal army. The empressC' 
merit exhibited at the White House toward the Fi-ench princes 
is attributed by ill-natured rumors and persons to a little pique 
on the part of Mrs. Lincoln, because the Princess Clothilde 
did not receive her at New York, but considerable doubts are 
entertained of the Empei'or's " loyalty " toward the Union. 
Under the wild extravagance of professions of attachment to 
France are hidden suspicions that Louis Napoleon may be 
capable of treasonable practices and misrepresentations, which, 
in time, may lead the Philadelphians to get up a petition 
against M. Mercier. 



/ 



McCLELLAN'S FUTURE. 535 

The news that twenty-two members of the Maryhind Legis- 
lature have been seized by the Federal autborities has not 
produced the smallest effect here ; so easily do men in the 
midst of political troubles bend to arbitrary power, and so 
rapidly do all guarantees disappear in a revolution. I was 
speaking to one of General McClellan's aides-de-camp this 
evening respecting these things, when he said — " If I thought 
he would use his power a day longer than was necessary, I 
would resign this moment. I believe him incapable of any 
selfish or unconstitutional views, or unlawful ambition, and 
you will see that he will not disappoint our expectations." 

It is now quite plain McClellun has no intention of making 
a general defensive movement against Richmond. He is 
aware his army is not equal to the task — commissariat defi- 
cient, artillery wanting, no cavalry ; above all, ill-officered, 
incoherent battalions. He hopes, no doubt, by constant 
reviewing and inspection, and by weeding out the preposter- 
ous fellows who render epaulettes ridiculous, to create an 
infantry which shall be able for a short campaign in the fine 
autumn weather; but I am quite satisfied he does not intend 
to move now, and possibly will not do so till next year. I 
have arranged therefore to pay a short visit to the West, pen- 
etrating as far as I can, without leaving telegraphs and rail- 
ways behind, so that if an advance takes place, I shall be back 
in time at Washington to assist at the earliest battle. These 
Federal armies do not move like the corps of the French re- 
public, or Crawford's Light Division. 

In truth, Washington life is becoming exceedingly monot- 
onous and uninteresting. The pleasant little evening parties 
or tertulias which once relieved the dulness of this dullest 
of capitals, take place no longer. Very wrong indeed 
would it be that rejoicings and festivities should occur in the 
capital of a country menaced with destruction, where many 
anxious hearts are grieving over the lost, or tortured with 
fears for the living. 

But for the hospitality of Lord Lyons to the English resi- 
dents, the place would be nearly insufferable, for at his house 
one met other friendly ministers who extended the circle of 
invitations, and two or three American families completed the 
list which one could reckon on his fingers. Then at night, 
there were assemblages of the same men, who uttered the 
same opinions, told the same stories, sang the same songs, 
vai'ied seldom by strange faces or novel accomplishments, but 



536 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

always friendly and social enough — not conducive pei'haps to 
veiy early rising, but innocent of gambling, or other excess. 
A flask of Bordeaux, a wicker-covered demijohn of Bourbon, 
a jug of iced water, and a bundle of cigars, with the latest 
arrival of newspapers, furnished the materiel of these small 
symposiums, in which Americans and Englishmen and a few 
of the members of foreign Legations, mingled in a friendly 
cosmopolitan manner. Now and then a star of greater mag- 
nitude came down upon us : a senator or an " earnest man," 
or a " live man," or a constitutional lawyer, or a remarkable 
statesman, coruscated, and rushing off into the outer woi'ld 
left us befogged, with our glimmering lights half extinguished 
with tobacco-smoke. 

Out of doors excessive heat alternating with thunder-storms 
and tropical showers — dust beaten into mud, or mud subli- 
mated into dust — eternal reviews, each like the other — 
visits to camp, where we saw the same men and heard the 
same stories of perpetual abortive skirmishes — rides confined 
to the same roads and paths by lines of sentries, offered no 
greater attraction than the city where one's bones were 
racked with fever and ague, and where every evening the 
pestilential vapors of the Potomac rose higher and spread 
further. No wonder that I was glad to get away to the Far 
West, particularly as I entertained hopes of witnessing some 
of the operations down the Mississippi, before I was sum- 
moned back to Washmgton, by the news that the grand army 
had actually broken up camp, and was about once more to 
mai'ch against Richmond. 

September \2th. — The day passed quietly, in spite of 
rumors of another battle ; the band played in the Pi-esident's 
garden, and citizens and citizenesses strolled about the grounds 
as if Secession had been annihilated. The President made a 
fitful appearance, in a gray shooting suit, with a number of 
despatches in his hand, and walked off toward the State De- 
partment quite unnoticed by the crowd. I am sure not half a 
dozen persons saluted him — not one of the men I saw even 
touched his hat. General Bell went round the works with 
McClellan,and expressed his opinion that it would be impossi- 
ble to fight a great battle in the country which lay between 
the two armies — in fact, as he said, ''a general could no more 
handle his troops among the woods, than he could regulate 
the movements of rabbits in a cover. You ought just to make 
a proposition to Beauregard to come out on some plain and 
fight the battle fairly out where you can see each otlxer." 



LEAVE BALTIMORE. 537 

Septemher 1 ^th. — It is most agreeable to be removed from 
all the circumstance without any of the pomp and glory of 
war. Although there is a tendency in the North, and, for 
aught I know, in the South, to consider the contest in the same 
light as one with a foreign enemy, the very battle-cries on 
both sides indicate a civil war. " The Union forever" — 
" States' rights" — and " Down with the Abolitionists," cannot 
be considered national. McClellan takes no note of time even 
by its loss, which is all the more strange because he sets great 
store upon it in his report on the conduct of the war in the 
Crimea. However, he knows an army cannot be made in two 
months, and that the larger it is, the more time there is re- 
quired to harmonize its components. The news from the Far 
West indicated a probability of some important operations 
taking place, although my first love — the army of the Poto- 
mac — must be returned to. Any way, there was the great 
Western Prairie to be seen, and the people who have been 
pouring from their plains so many thousands upon the South- 
ern States to assert the liberties of those colored races whom 
they will not permit to cross their borders as freemen. Mr. 
Lincoln, Mr. Blair, and other Abolitionists, are actuated by 
similar sentiments, and seek to emancipate the slave, and re- 
move from him the protection of his master, in order that 
they may drive him from the continent altogether, or force 
him to seek refuge in emigration. 

On the 18th of September, I left Baltimore in company 
with Major-General Bell, C. B., and Mr. Lamy, who was well 
acquainted with the Western States : stopping one night at 
Altoona, in order that we might cross by daylight the fine 
passes of the Alleganies, which are traversed by bold gradi- 
ents, and remarkable cuttings, second only in difficulty and 
extent to those of the railroad across the Sommering. 

So far as my observation extends, no route in the United 
States can give a stranger a better notion of the variety of 
scenery and of resources, the vast extent of territory, the dif- 
ference in races, the prosperity of the i)resent, and the proba- 
ble greatness of the future, than the line from Baltimore by 
Harrisburg and Pittsburg to Chicago, traversing the great 
States of Pennsylvania, Oliio, and Indiana. Plain and moun- 
tain, hill and valley, river and meadow, forest and rock, wild 
tracts through which the Indian roamed but a few years ago, 
lands covered with the richest crops ; rugged passes, which 
Salvator would have peopled with shadowy groups of bandits ; 
23* 



538 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

gentle sylvan j^lades, such as Gainsborough would have cov- 
ered with waving corn ; the hum of mills, the silence of the 
desert and waste, sea-like lakes whitened by innumerable sails, 
mighty rivers carving their way through continents, sparkling 
rivulets that lose their lives amongst giant wheels: seams and 
lodes of coal, iron, and mineral wealth, cropping out of desolate 
mountain sides ; busy, restless manufacturers and traders al- 
ternating with stolid rustics, hedges clustering with grapes, 
mountains whitening with snow ; and beyond, the great Prai- 
rie stretching away to the backbone of inhospitable rock, 
which, rising fi-om the foundations of the world, bar the access 
of the white man and civilization to the bleak inhospitable re- 
gions beyond, which both are fain as yet to leave to the savage 
and wild beast. 

Travelling along the banks of the Susquehannah, the visit- 
or, however, is neither permitted to admire the works of na- 
ture in silence, or to express his admiration of the energy of 
man in his own way. The tyranny of public opinion is upon 
hira. He must admit that he never saw any thing so wonder- 
ful in his life ; that there is nothing so beautiful anywhere 
else ; no fields so green, no rivers so wide and deep, no 
bridges so lofty and long ; and at last he is inclined to shut 
himself up, either in absolute grumpy negation, or to indulge 
in hopeless controversy. An American gentleman is as little 
likely as any other well-bred man to force the opinions or in- 
terrupt the reveries of a stranger ; but if tliird-class P2squi- 
maux are allowed to travel in first-class carriages, the hospi- 
table creatures will be quite likely to insist on your swallow- 
ing train oil, eating blubbei", or admiring snow-drifts, as the 
finest things in the world. It is infinitely to the credit of the 
American people that actual offence is so seldom given and is 
still more rarely intended — always save and except in the 
one particular, of chewing tobacco. Having seen most things 
that can irritate one's stomach, and being in company with an 
old soldier, I little expected that any excess of the sort could 
produce disagreeable effects ; but on returning from this ex- 
cursion, Mr. Lamy and myself were fairly driven out of a 
carriage, on the Pittsburg line, in utter loathing and disgust, 
by the condition of the floor. The conductor, passing through, 
said, " You must not stand out there, it is against tl»e rides ; 
you can go in and smoke," pointing to the carriage. ^^ In 
there ! " exclaimed my friend, " why, it is too filthy to put a 
wild beast into." The conductor looked in for a moment, 



PITTSBURG. 539 

nodded his head, and said, " "Well, I concede it is right bad ; 
the citizens are going it pretty strong," and so left us. 

The scenery along the Juniata is still more picturesque 
than that of the valley of the Susquehannah. The borders of 
the route across the Alleghanies have been described by 
many a writer ; but notwithstanding the good fortune which 
favored us, and swept away the dense vale of vapors on the 
lower ranges of the hills, the landscape scarcely produced the 
effect of scenery on a less extended scale, just as the scenery 
of the Himalayas is not so striking as that of the Alps, be- 
cause it is on too vast a scale to be readily grasped. 

Pittsburg, where we halted next night, on the Ohio, is cer- 
tainly, with the exception of Birmingham, the most intensely 
sooty, busy, squalid, foul-housed, and vile-suburbed city 1 
have ever seen. Under its perpetual canopy of smoke, 
pierced by a forest of blackened chimneys, the ill-paved 
streets, swarm with a streaky population whose white faces 
are smutched with soot streaks — the noise of vans and di'ays 
which shake the houses as they pass, the turbulent life in the 
thoroughfares, the wretched brick tenements, — built in waste 
places on squalid mounds, surrounded by heaps of slag and 
broken brick — all these gave the stranger the idea of some 
vast manufacturing city of the Inferno ; and yet a few miles 
beyond, the country is studded with beautiful villas, and the 
great river, bearing innumerable barges and steamers on its 
broad bosom, rolls its turbid waters between banks rich with 
cultivated crops. 

The policeman at Pittsburg station — a burly Englishman 
— told me that the war had been of the greatest service to 
the city. He spoke not only from a policeman's point of 
view, when he said that all the rowdies, Irish, Germans, and 
others had gone off to the war, but from the manufacturing 
stand-point, as he added that wages wei-e high, and that the 
orders from contractors were keeping all the manufacturers 
going. " It is wonderful," said he, " what a number of the 
citizens come back from the South, by rail, in these new me- 
tallic coffins." 

A long, long day, traversing the State of Indiana by the 
Fort Wayne route, followed by a longer night, just sufficed 
to carry us to Chicago. The railway passes through a most 
uninteresting country, which in part is scarcely rescued from 
a state of nature by the hand of man ; but it is wonderful to 
see so much done, when one hears that the Miami Indians 



540 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

and other tribes were driven out, or, as the phrase is, " re- 
moved," only twenty years ago — " conveyed, the wise called 
it" — to the reserves. 

From Chicago, where we descended at a hotel whicli fairly 
deserves to be styled magnificent, for comfort and complete- 
ness, Mr. Lamy and myself proceeded to Racine, on the 
shores of Lake Michigan, and thence took the rail for Free- 
port, where I remained for some days, going out in the sur- 
rounding prairie to shoot in the morning, and returning at 
nightfall. The prairie chickens were rather wild. The de- 
light of these days, notwithstanding bad sport, cannot be de- 
scribed, nor was it the least ingredient in it to mix with the 
fresh and vigorous race who are raising up cities on these 
fertile wastes. Fortunately for the patience of my readers, 
perhaps, I did not fill my diary with the records of each day's 
events, or of the contents of our bags ; and the note-book in 
which I jotted down some little matters which struck me to 
be of interest has been mislaid ; but in my letters to England 
I gave a description of the general aspect of the country, and 
of the feelings of the people, and arrived at the conclusion 
that the tax-gatherer will have little chance of returning with 
full note-books from his tour in these districts. The dogs 
which were lent to us were generally abominable ; but every 
evening we returned in company with great leather-greaved 
and jerkined-men, hung round with belts and hooks, from 
which were suspended stinngs of defunct prairie chickens. 
The farmers were hospitable, but were suffering from a mor- 
bid longing for a failure of crops in Europe, in order to give 
some value to their corn and wheat, which literally cumbered 
the earth. 

Freeport! Who ever heard of it? And yet it has its 
newspapers, more than I dare mention, and its big hotel 
lighted with gas, its billiard-rooms and saloons, magazines, 
railway stations, and all the proper paraphernalia of local 
self-government, with all their fierce intrigues and giddy 
factions. 

From Freeport our party returned to Chicago, taking leave 
of our excellent friend and companion Mr. George Thompson, 
of Racine. The authorities of the Centi-al Illinois Railway, 
to whose courtesy and consideration I was infinitely indebted, 
placed at our disposal a magnificent sleeping carriage ; and 
on the morning after our arrival, having laid in a good stock 
of supplies, and engaged an excellent sporting guide and dogs, 



A NOVEL SHOOTING-BOX. 541 

we started, attached to the regular train from Chicago, until 
the train stopped at a shunting place near the station of 
Dwight, in 'the very centre of the prairie. "We reached our 
halting-place, were detached, and were shot up a siding in 
the solitude, with no habitation in view, except the wood 
shanty, in which lived the family of tlie Irish overseer of this 
portion of the road — a man haj)]iy in the possession of a 
piece of gold which he received from the Prince of Wales, 
and for which he declared he would not take the amount of 
the National Debt. 

The sleeping carriage proved most comfortable quarters. 
After breakfast in the morning, Mr. Lamy, Col. Fostei", Mr. 
— ; — , of the Central Illinois rail, the keeper, and myself, 
descending the steps of our movable house, Avalked in a few 
strides to the shooting grounds, which abounded with quail, 
but were not so well peopled by the chickens. The quail were 
weak on the wing, owing to the lateness of the season, and 
my companions grumbled at their hard luck, though I was 
well content with fresh air, my small share of birds, and a 
few American hares. Night and morning the train rushed 
by, and when darkness settled down upon the prairie, our 
lamps were liglited, dinner was served in the carriage, set 
fortli with inimitable potatoes cooked by the old Irishwoman. 
From the dinner-table it was but a step to go to bed. When 
storm or rain rushed over the sea-like plain, I remained in the 
carriage writing, and after a long spell of work, it was inex- 
pressibly pleasant to take a ramble through the flowering 
grass and the sweet-scented broom, and to go beating through 
the stunted under-clover, careless of rattle-snakes, whose tiny 
pi'attling music I heard often enough without a sight of the 
tails that made it. 

One rainy morning, the 29th September, I think, as the sun 
began to break through drifting rain clouds, I saw my com- 
panions preparing their guns, the sporting chaperon Walker 
filling the shot flasks, and making all the usual arrangements 
for a day's shooting. " You don't mean to say you are going 
out shooting on a Sunday ! " I said. " What, on the prairies ! " 
exclaimed Colonel Foster. "Why, of course we are; there's 
nothing wrong in it here. What nobler temple can we find 
to worship in than lies around us ? It is the custom of the 
people hereabouts to shoot on Sundays, and it is a work of 
necessity with us, for our larder is very low." 

And so, after breakfast, we set out, but the rain came down 



542 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

SO densely that we were flriven to tlie house of a farmer, and 
finally we returned to our sleeping carriage for the day. I 
never fired a shot nor put a gun to my shoulder, nor a'm I 
sure that any of my companions killed a bird. 

The rain fell with violence all day, and at night the gusts 
of wind shook the carriage like a ship at sea. We were sit- 
ting at table after dinner, when the door at the end of the 
carriage opened, and a man in a mackintosh dripping wet, 
advanced with unsteady steps along the centre of the carriage, 
between the beds, and taking off his hat, in the top of which 
he searched diligently, stood staring with lack-lustre eyes 
from one to the other of the party, till Colonel Foster ex- 
claimed, " Well, sir, what do you want ? " 

" Wiiat do I want," he replied, with a slight thickness of 
speech, " which of you is the Honorable Lord William Rus- 
sell, correspondent of the London Times f That's what I 
want." 

I certified to my identity ; whereu[)on, drawing a piece of 
paper out of his hat, he continued, "Then I arrest you, Hon- 
orable Lord William Russell, in the name of the people of the 
commonwealth of Illinois," and thereupon handed me a 
document, declarino; that one Morgan, of D\vio;ht, having 
come before him that day and sworn that I, with a company 
of men and dogs, had unlawfully assembled, and by firing 
shots, and by barking and noise, had disturbed the peace of 
the State of Illinois, he, the subscriber or justice of the peace, 
as named and described, commanded the constable Podgers, 
or whatever his name was, to bring my body betbre him to 
answer to the charge. 

Now this town of Dwight was a good many miles aAvay, 
the road was declared by those who knew it to be very bad, 
the night was pitch dark, the i-ain falling in torrents, and as 
the constable, drawing out of his hat paper after paper with 
the names of impossible persons upon them, served subpoenas 
on all the rest of the ])arty to appear next morning, the anger 
of Colonel Foster could scarcely be restiained, by kicks under 
the table and nods and becks and wreathed smiles from the 
rest of the- party. " This is infamous ! It is a political perse- 
cution!" he exclaimed, whilst the keeper joined in chorus, 
declaring he never heard of such a proceeding before in all 
his long experience of the prairie, and never knew thei-e was 
such an act in existence. The Irislunen in the hut added 
that the informer himself generally went out shooting evei'y 



THE MAN OF DWIGHT. 543 

Sunday. However, I could not but regret I had given the 
fellow an opportunity of striking at me, and though I was the 
only one of the party who raised an objection to our going 
out at all, I was deservedly suffering for the impropriety — 
to call it here by no harsher name. 

The constable, a man with a liquid eye and a cheerful 
countenance, paid particular attention meantime to a large 
bottle upon the table, and as I professed my readiness^ to go 
the moment he had some refreshment that very wet night, 
the stern severity becoming a minister of justice, which 
marked his first utterances, was sensibly mollified : and when 

Mr. proposed that he should drive back with him and 

see the prosecutor, he was good enough to accept my written 
ack"nowledgment of the service of the writ, and promise to 
appear the following morning, as an adequate discharge of 
his duty — combined with the absorption of some Bourbon 
whiskey — and so retired. 

]Mr. returned late at night, and very angry. It ap- 
pears tliat the prosecutor — who is not a man of very good 
reputation, and whom his neighbors were as much astonished 
to find the chami)ion of religious observances as they would 
have been if he was to come forward to insist on the respect 
due to the seventh commandment — Vith the insatiable pas- 
sion for notoriety, which is one of the worst results of Amer- 
ican institutions, thought he would gain himself some little 
reputation by causing annoyance to a man so unpopular as 
myself. He and a companion having come from Dwight for 
the purpose, and hiding in the neighborhood, had, therefore, 
devoted their day to lying in wait and watching our party; 
and as they were aware in the railway carriage I was with 
Colonel Foster, they had no difficulty in finding out the names 
of the rest of tlie party. The magistrate being his relative, 
granted the warrant at once ; and the prosecutor, who was in 
waiting for the constable, was exceedingly disappointed when 
he found that I had not been dragged through the rain. 

Next morning, a special engine which had been ordered u]^ 
by telegraph appeared alongside the car ; and a short run 
through a beautifid country brought us to the prairie town of 
Dwight. The citizens were astir — it was a great day — and 
as I walked with Colonel Foster, all the good people seemed 
to be enjoying an unexampled/treat in gazing at the stupen- 
dous criminal. The court-house, or magistrate's office, was 
suitable to the republican simplicity of the people of Dwight; 



544 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

for the chamber of justice was on the first floor of a house 
over a store, and access was obtained to it by a ladder from 
the street to a platform at the lop of which I was ushered into 
the presence of the court, a plain white-washed room. I am 
not sure there was even an engravin"; of Geoi-ge Washington 
on the walls. The magistrate in a full suit of black, with his 
hat on, was seated at a small table ; behind him a few books, 
on plain deal shelves, provided his fund of legal learning. 
The constable, with a severer visage than that of last night, 
stood upon the right hand ; three sides of the room were sur- 
rounded by a wall of stout honest Dwightians, among whom 
I produced a jjrofound sensation, by the simple ceremony of 
taking off ray hat, which they no doubt considered a token of 
the degraded nature of the Britisher, but which moved the 
magistrate to take off his head-covering; whereupon some of 
the nearest removed theirs, some putting them on again, and 
some remaining uncovered ; and then the informations were 
read, and on being asked what I had to say, I merely bowed, 
and said I had no remarks to offer. But my friend. Colonel 
Foster, who had been churning up his wrath and forensic 
lore for some time, putting one hand under his coat tail, and 
elevating the other in the air, with modulated cadences, 
poured out a fine oratorical flow which completely astonished 
me, and whipped the audience morally off their legs com- 
pletely. In touching terms he described the mission of an 
illustrious stranger, who had wandered over thousands of 
miles of land and sea to gaze upon the beauties of those 
prairies which the Great Maker of the Universe had expanded 
as the banqueting tables for the famishing millions of pauper- 
ized and despotic Europe. As the representative of an influ- 
ence which the people of the great State of Illinois should 
wish to see developed instead of contracted, honored instead 
of being insulted, he had come among them to admire the 
grandeur of natui-e, and to behold with wonder the magniii- 
cent progress of human happiness and free institutions. 
(Some thumping of sticks, and cries of " Bravo, that's so," 
which warmed the Colonel into still higher flights). I began 
to feel if he was as great in invective as he was in eulogy, it 
was well he had not lived to throw a smooth pebble from his 
sling at Warren Hastings. As great indeed ! Why, when 
the Colonel had drawn a beautiful picture of me examining 
coal deposits — investigating strata — breathing autumnal 
airs, and culling flowers in unsuspecting innocence, and then 



THE COLONEL'S ORATION. 545 

suddenly denounced the serpent who had dogged ray steps 
in order to strike mv. down with a justiee's'warrant, I protest 
it is doubtful, if he did not reach to the most elevated stage of 
vituperative oratory, the progression of which was marked by 
increasing thumps of sticks, and louder murmurs of applause, 
to the discomfiture of the wretched prosecutor. But the 
magistrate was not a man of imagination ; he felt he was but 
elective after all ; and so, with his eye fixed upon his book, 
he pronounced his decision, which was that I be amerced in 
something more than half the maximum fine fixed by the 
statute, some five-and-twenty shillings or so, the greater part 
to be spent iu the education of the people by ti'ansfer to the 
school fund of the State. 

As I was handing the notes to the magistrate, several re- 
spectable men coming forward exclaimed, " Pray oblige us, 
Mr. Russell, by letting us pay the amount for you ; this is a 
shameful proceeding." But thanking them heartily for their 
proffered kindness, I completed tlie little pecuniary transaction 
and wished the magistrate good morning, with the remark 
that I hoped the people of the State of Illinois would always 
find sucli worthy defenders of the statutes as the prosecutor, 
and never have offendei'S against their peace and morals more 
culpable than myself. Having undergone a severe scolding 
from an old woman at the top of the ladder, I walked to the 
train, followed by a number of the audience, who repeatedly 
expressed their extreme regret at the little persecution to 
which I had been subjected. The prosecutor had already 
made arrangements to send the news over the whole breadth 
of the Union, which was his only reward ; as I must do the 
American papers the justice to say that, with a few natural 
exceptions, those which noticed the occurrence unequivocally 
condemned his conduct. 

That evening, as we were planning an extension of our 
sporting tour, the mail rattling by deposited our letters and 
])apers, and we saw at the top of many columns the startling 
words, " Grand Advance of the Union Army." " McClellan 
INIarching on Richmond." " Capture of Munson's Hill." "Re- 
treat of the Enemy — 30,000 Men seize their Fortifications." 
Not a moment was to be lost ; if I was too late, I never would 
forgive myself Our carriage was hooked on to the return 
train, and at 8 o'clock r. M. I started on my return to Wash- 
inton, by way of Cleveland. 

At half-past 3 on the 1st October the train reached Pitts- 



546 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. • 

burg, just too late to catch the train for Baltimore ; but I con- 
tinued my journey at night, arriving at Baltimore after noon, 
and reaching Washington at 6 i'. m. on the 2d of October. 

October dd. — In Washington once more — all the world 
laughing at the pump and the wooden guns at Munson's Hill, but 
angry withal because McClellan should be so befooled as they 
considered it, by the Confederates. The fact is McClellan was 
not prepared to move, and therefore not disposed to hazard a 
general engagement, which he might Jiave brought on had the 
enemy been in force ; perhaps he knew they were not, but 
found it convenient nevertheless to act as though he believed 
they had established themselves strongly in his front, as half 
the world will give him credit for knowing more than the 
civilian strategists who have already got into disgrace for urg- 
ing McDowell on to Richmond. The Fedei-al armies are not 
handled easily. They are luxurious in the matter of baggage, 
and canteens, and private stores ; and this is just the sort of 
war in which the general who moves lightly and rapidly, 
striking blows unexpectedly and deranging communications, 
will obtain great results. 

Although Beauregard's name is constantly mentioned, I 
fancy that, crafty and reticent as he is, the operations in 
front of us have been directed by an officer of larger capacity. 
As yet McClellan has certainly done nothing in the field to 
show he is like Napoleon. The value of his labors in camp 
has yet to be tested. I dined at the Legation, and afterwards 
there was a meeting at my rooms, where I heard of all that 
had passed during my absence. 

October \th. — The new expedition of which I have been 
hearing for some time past, is about to sail to Port Royal, 
under the command of General Burnside, in order to reduce 
the works erected at the entrance of the Sound, to secure a 
base of operations against Charleston, and to cut in upon the 
communication between that place and Savannah. Alas, for 
poor Trescott ! his plantations, his secluded home! What 
will the good lady think of the Yankee invasion, which surely 
must succeed, as the naval force will be overwhelming? I 
visited the division of General Egbert Viele, encamped near 
the Navy-yard, Avhich is bound to Annapolis, as a part of 
General Burnside's expedition. When first I saw him, the 
general was an emeritus captain, attached to the 7th New 
York Militia ; now he is a Brigadier-General, if not some- 
thing more, commanding a corps of nearly 5000 men, with 



THE PHILADELPHIA PETITION. 547 

pay and allowances to match. His good lady wife, who 
accompanied him in the Mexican campaign, — whereof came 
a book, lively and light, as a lady's book should be, — was 
about to accompany her husband in his assault on the Caro- 
linians, and prepared for action by opening a small broad- 
side on my unhappy self, whom she regarded as an enemy 
of our glorious Union ; and therefore an ally of the Evil 
Powers on both sides of the grave. The women. North and 
South are equally pitiless to their enemies ; and it was but the 
other day a man with whom I am on very good terms in 
Washington made an apology for not asking me to his house, 
because his wife was a strong Union woman. 

A gentleman who had been dining with Mr. Seward to-night 
told me the Minister had complained that I had not been near 
him for nearly two months ; the fact Avas, however, that I had 
called twice immediately after the appearance in America 
of my letter dated July 22d, and had met Mr. Seward after- 
wards, when his manner was, or appeared to me to be, cold 
and distant, and I had therefore abstained from intruding my- 
self upon his notice ; nor did his answer to the Philadelphian 
petition — in which Mr. Seward appeared to admit the allega- 
tions made against me were true, and to consider I had vio- 
lated the hospitality accorded me — induce me to think that 
he did not entertain the opinion which these journals which 
set themselves up to be his organs had so repeatedly ex- 
pressed. 



CHAPTER LVIT. 

Another Crimoan aoquaintanoe — Suminary dismissal of a nowsjiapttr 
corr('S])()ii(lciit — DiiiiKT at Lord Lyons' — Ucvicw of artillLTy — 
" Habeas Coiims " — Tlic I'l-e'sidciit's dulit's — McCU'dan's [)oli<:y 
— The Union Army — Soldiers and the patrol — Piihlie men in 
America — Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons — AJudj?e i)Iaced under 
arrest — Death and funi-ral of Senator Haker — Disorderly troops 
and olHcers — Ottieial fibs — Duck-shooting at Baltimore. 

October ^)th. — A day of heat extreme. Tumbled in upon 
mean old IJuniliar lace and voice, once Forster of a hospitahle 
Crimean hut Ixdiind Motlier Seacole's, commandinj^ a batlaliou 
of Laud Transport Corps, to wliich lie had descended or sub- 
limated from his position as ex-Austrian dragoon and beau 
siibrear under old Radetzsky iu Italian wars ; now a colonel 
of distant volunteers, and a member of the Parliament of lirit 
isli Columbia. He was on his way home to Euroj)e, and had 
travelled thus far out of his way to see his friend. 

After him came in a gentleman, heated, wild-eyed, and 
excited, who had been in the South, where he was acting as 
corres|){)ndent to a London ncnvspaper, and on his return to 
Washington had obtained a pass from General Scott. Ac- 
cording to his own story, he had been indulging in a habit 
which fn^e-born Englishmen may occasionally find to be in- 
convenient in foreign countries in times of higli excitement, 
and had been expressing hift opinion pretty freely in favor 
of the Soutliern cause in the bar-rooms of Pennsylvania Avi^^ 
nue. Imagine a Frenchman going about (he taverns of Dub- 
lin during an Irish rebellion, expressing his sympathy with 
lh(> i'eb(ds, and you may suppose he would meet with treat- 
ment at least as peremptory as that which the Federal author- 
ities gav(! Mr. 1) . In fine, that morning early, he had 

been waited upon by an olHcer, who recpiested his attendance 
at the Provost-JMarshal's ollice ; arrived tiiere, a functionary, 
after a few (piei'ies, asked liim to give up Gencsrai Scott's pass, 
and when Mr. D refused to do so, proceeded to execute 



REVIEW OF THE ARTILLERY. 549 

a terrible sort of proces verbal on a large slieet of foolscap, 
the initiatory flourishes and prolcgomtMia of which so intimi- 
dated Mr. D , that he gave up his pass and was permitted 

to depart, in order that he might start for England by the next 
steamer. 

A wonderful Frenchman, who lives up a hack street, pre- 
pared a curious bancpiet, at which Mr. Irvine, Mr. Warre, 
Mr, Ander.-on, Mr. Lamy, and Colonel F'oster assisted ; and 
in the evening Mr. Lincoln's private secretary, a witty, shrewd, 
and pleasant young fellow, who looks little more than eighteen 
years of ag<', came in with a friend, whose name I forget ; and 
by degrees the circle expanded, till the walls seemed to have 
become elastic, so great was the concourse of guests. 

October Gth. — A day of wandering around, and visiting, and 
listening to rumors all unfounded. I have applied for permis- 
sion to accompany the Burnside expedition, but I am advised 
not to leave Washington, as McClellan will certainly advance 
as soon as the diversion has been made down South. 

October 1th. — The heat to-day was literally intolerable, and 
wound up at last in a tremendous thunder-storm with violent 
gusts of rain. At the Legation, where Lord Lyons entertained 
the English visitors at dinner, the rooms were shaken by thun- 
der-claps, and the blinding lightning seemed at times to turn 
the well-illuminated rooms into caves of darkness. 

October Sth. — A review of the artillery at this side of the 
river took j)lace to-day, which has been described in very in- 
flated language by the American papers, the writers on which 
— never having seen a decently-equipped force of the kind — 
pronounce the sight to have been of unequalled splendor ; 
whereas the appearance of horses and men was very far from 
respectable in all mattei's relating to grooming, cleanliness, and 
neatness. General Barry has done wonders in simplifying the 
force and reducing the number of calibi-es, which varied ac- 
cording to tlie fancy of each State, or men of each officer who 
raised a battery ; but there are still field-guns of three inches 
and of three inches and a half, Napoleon guns, I'ifled ten-pound 
Parrotts, ordinary nine-pounders, a variety of howitzers, twenty- 
pound Farrott rifled guns, and a variety of different projectiles 
in the caissons. As the men rode past, the eye was distressed by 
discrepancies in dress. Many wore red or white worsted com- 
forters round their necks, few had straps to their trousers; 
some had new coats, others old ; some wore boots, others 
shoes ; not one had clean spurs, bits, curb-chains, or buttons. 



550 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

The officers cannot get the men to do what the latter regard 
as works of supererogation. 

There were 72 guns in all ; and if the horses were not so 
light, there would be quite enough to do for the Confederates 
to reduce their fire, as the pieces are easily handled, and the 
men like artillery and take to it naturally- being in that respect 
something like the natives of India. 

Whilst I was standing in the crowd, I heard a woman say, 
" I doubt if that Russell is riding about here. I should just 
like to see him to give him a piece of my mind. They say 
he's honest, but I call him a poor pre-jewdiced Britisher. 
This sight '11 give him fits." I was quite delighted at my 
incognito. If the caricatures were at all like me, I should 
have what the Americans call a bad time of it. 

On the return of the batteries a shell exploded in a caisson 
just in front of the President's house, and, miraculous to state, 
did not file the other projectiles. Had it done so, the destruc- 
tion of life in the crowded street — blocked up with artillery, 
men, and horses, and crowds of men, women, and children — 
would have been truly frightful. Such accidents are not un- 
common — a wagon blew up the other day " out West," and 
killed and wounded several people ; and though the accidents 
in camp from fire-arms are not so numerous as they were, there 
are still enough to present a heavy casualty list. 

Whilst the artillery were delighting the citizens, a much 
more important matter was taking place in an obscure little 
court-house — much more destructive to their freedom, hap- 
piness, and greatness than all the Confederate guns which can 
ever be ranged against them. A brave, upright, and honest 
judge, as in duty bound, issued a writ of habeas corpus, sued 
out by the friends of a minor, who, contrary to the laws of the 
United States, had been enlisted by an American general, and 
was detained by him in the ranks of his regiment. The of- 
ficer refused to obey the writ, whereupon the judge issued an 
attachment against him, and the Federal Brigadier came into 
court and pleaded that he took that course by order of the 
President. The court adjourned, to consider the steps it 
should take. 

I have just seen a paragraph in the Jocal paper, copied 
from a west country journal, headed " Good for liussell," 
which may explain the unusually favorable impression ex- 
pressed by the women this morning. It is an account of the 
interview I had with the officer who came " to trade " for my 



NEWSPAPER STORIES. 551 

horse, written by the latter to a Green Bay newspaper, in 
which, having duly censured my "John Bullism" in not re- 
ceiving with the utmost courtesy a stranger, who walked into 
his room before breakfast on business unknown, he relates as 
a proof of honesty (in such a rare field as trading in horse-flesh) 
that, though ray groom had sought to put ten dollars in my 
pocket by a mild exaggeration of the amount paid for the 
animal, which was the price I said I would take, I would not 
have it. 

October 0th. — A cold, gloomy day. I am laid up with the 
fever and ague, which visit the banks of the Potomac in au- 
tumn. It annoyed me the more because General McClellan 
is making a reconnoissance to-day towards Lewinsville, with 
10,000 men. A gentleman from the War Department visited 
me to-day, and gave me scanty hopes ol' procuring any assist- 
ance from the authorities in taking the field. Civility costs 
nothing, and certainly if it did United States officials would 
require high salaries, but they often content themselves with 
fair words. 

There are some things about our neighbors which we may 
never hope to understand. To-day, for instance, a respectable 
person, high in office, having been good enough to invite me 
to his house, added " You shall see Mrs. A., sir. She is a 
very pretty and agreeable young lady, and will prove nice 
society for you," meaning liis wife. 

Mr. N. P. Willis was good enough to call on me, and in the 
course of conversation said, " I hear McClellan tells you every- 
thing. When you went away West I was very near going 
after you, as I suspected you heard something." Mr. Willis 
could have had no grounds for this remark, for very certainly 
it has no fuinidation in fact. Truth to tell, General McClellan 
seemed, the last time I saw him, a little alarmed by a para- 
graph in a New York paper, from the Washington corre- 
spondent, in which it was invidiously stated, " General Mc- 
Clellan, attended by Mr. Russell, correspondent of the London 
' Times, ' visited the camps to-day. All passes to civilians and 
others were revoked." There was -not the smallest ground for 
the statement on the day in question, but I am resolved not to 
contradict anything which is said about me, but the General 
could not well do so ; and one of the favorite devices of the 
Washington correspondent to fill up his columns, is to write 
something about rac, to state I have been refused passes, or 
have got them, or whatever else he likes to say. 



5f>2 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Calling on the General the other night at his usnal time of 
return, I was told by the orderly, who was closing the door, 
" The General's gone to bed tired, and can see no one. He 
sent the same message to the President, who came inquiring 
after him ten minutes ago." 

This poor President ! He is to be pitied ; surrounded by 
such scenes, and trying with all his might to understand 
strategy, naval warfare, big guns, the movements of troops, 
military maps, reconnoissances, occupations, interior and ex- 
terior lines, and all the technical details of the art of slaying. 
He runs from one house to another, armed with plans, papers, 
reports, recommendations, sometimes good-humored, never an- 
gry, occasionally dejected, and always a little fussy. The 
other night, as I was sitting in the parlor at head-quarters, 
with an ICnglish friend who had come to see his old acquaint- 
ance the General, walked in a tall man with a navvy's cap, 
and an ill-made shooting-suit, from the pockets of which jiro- 
truded paper and bundles. " Well," said he to Brigadier Van 
Vliet, who rose to receive him, " is George in ? " 

" Yes, sir. He's come back, but is lying down, very much 
fatigued. I'll send up, sir, and inform him you wish to see 
him." 

" Oh, no ; I can wait. I think I'll take supper with him. 
"Well, and what are you now, — I forget yoin- name — are you 
a major, or a colonel, or a general ? " " Whatever you like to 
make me, sir." 

Seeing that General McClellan would be occupied, I walked 
out with my friend, who asked me when I got into the street 
why I stood up when that tall fellow came into the room. 
" Because it was the President." " The President of what ? " 
"Of the United States." " Oh ! come, now you're humbug- 
ging me. Let me have another look at him." He came 
back more incredulous than ever, but when I assured him 
I was quite serious, he exclaimed, " I give up the United 
States after this." 

But for all that, there have been many more courtly presi- 
dents who, in a similar crisis, would have displayed less capac- 
ity, honesty, and plain dealing than Abraham Lincoln. 

October 10th. — I got hold of McClellan's report on the 
Crimean wax-, and made a few candid remarks on the per- 
formance, which does not evince any capacity beyond the 
reports of our itinerant artillery oificers who are sent from 
Woolwich abroad for their country's good. I like the man, 



M'CLELLAN AND THE AKMY. 553 

but I do not think he is equal to his occasion or his place. 
There is one little piece of policy which shows he is looking 
ahead — eitlier to gain the good-will of the army, or for some 
larger object. All his present purpose is to make himself 
known to the men personally, to familiarize them with his 
appearance, to gain the acquaintance of the officers ; and with 
this object he spends nearly every day in the camps, riding 
out at nine o'clock, and not returning till long after nightfall, 
examining the various regiments as he goes along, and having 
incessant inspections and reviews. He is the first Republican 
general who could attempt to do all this without incurring 
censure and suspicion. Unfortunate McDowell could not in- 
spect his small army without receiving a hint that he must not 
assume such airs, as they were more becoming a military 
despot than a simple lieutenant of the great democracy. 

October 11th. — Mr. Mure, who has arrived here in wretched 
health from New Orleans, after a protracted and very un- 
pleasant journey through country swarming with troops mixed 
with guerrillas, tells me that I am more detested in New Or- 
leans than I am in New York. This is ever the fate of the 
neutral, if the belligerents can get him between them. The 
Girondins and men of the juste milieu are ever fated to be 
ground to powder. The charges against me were disposed of 
by Mr. Mure, who says that what I wrote of in New Orleans 
was true, and has shown it to be so in his correspondence with 
the Governor, but, over and beyond that, I am disliked, be- 
cause I do not praise the peculiar institution. He amused me 
by adding that the mayor of Jackson, with whom I sojourned, 
had published " a card," denying point-blank that he had ever 
breathed a word to indicate that the good citizens around him 
were not famous for the love of law, order, and life, and a 
scrupulous regard to personal liberty. I can easily fancy 
Jackson is not a place where a mayor suspected by the citi- 
zens would be exempted from difficulties now and then ; and 
if this disclaimer does my friend any good, he is very heartily 
welcome to it and more. I have received several letters lately 
from the parents of minors, asking me to assist them in getting 
back their sons, who have enlisted illegally in the Federal 
army. My writ does not run any further than a Federal 
judge's. 

October 12th. — The good people of New York and of the 
other Northern cities, excited by the constant reports in the 
papers of magnificent reviews and unsurpassed military spec- 
24 



554 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

tacles, begin to flock towards Washington in hundreds, where 
formerly they came in tens. The woman-kind are particularly 
anxious to feast their eyes on our glorious Union army. It is 
natural enough that Americans should feel pride and take 
pleasui-e in the spectacle ; but the love of economy, the hatred 
of military despotism, and the frugal virtues of republican gov- 
ernment, long since placed aside by the exigencies of the Ad- 
ministration, promise to vanish forever. 

The feeling is well expressed in the remark of a gentleman 
to whom I was lamenting the civil war : " Well, for ray part, 
I am glad of it. Why should you in Europe have all the 
fighting to yourself? Why should we not have our bloody 
battles, and our big generals, and all the rest of it ? This will 
stir up the spirits of our people, do us all a power of good, and 
end by proving to all of you in E^urope, that we are just as 
good and first-rate in fighting as we are in ships, manufactures, 
and commerce." 

But the wealthy classes are beginning to feel rather anxious 
about the disposal of their money : they are paying a large 
iiisurance on the Union, and tliey do not see that anything has 
been done to stop the leak or to prevent it foundei'iiig. Mr. 
Duncan has arrived ; to-day I drove with him to Alexandria, 
and I think he has been made happy by what he saw, and has 
no doubt " the Union is all right." Nothing looks so irresist- 
ible as your bayonet till another is seen opposed to it. 

October l^th. — Mr. Duncan, attended by myself and other 
Britishers, made an extensive excursion through the camps 
on horseback, and 1 led him from Arlington to Upton's House, 
up by Munson's Hill, to Geneial AVadsworth's quarters, where 
we lunched on camp fare and, from the observatory erected at 
the rear of tiie house in which he lives, iiad a fine view this 
bright, cold, clear autumn day, of the wonderful expanse of 
undulating forest lands, streaked by rows of tents, which at 
last concentrated into vast white patches in the distance, tow- 
ards Alexandria. The country is desolate, but the camps are 
flourisiiing. and that is enough to satisfy most patriots bent 
upon the subjugation of their enemies. 

October \4ct.Ii. — I was somewhat distraught, like a small 
Hercules twixt Vice and Virtue, or Garrick between Comedy 
and Tragedy, by my desire to tell Duncan the truth, and at 
the same time respect the feelings of a friend. There was a 
rabbledom of drunken men in uniforms under our windows, 
who resisted the patrol clearing the streets, and one fellow 



DEFUNCT CELEBRITIES. 555 

drew his bayonet, and, with the support of some of the citi- 
zens, said that he would not allow any regular to put a finger 

on him. D said he had witnessed scenes just as bad, and 

talked of lanes in garrison towns in England, and street rows 
between soldiers and civilians ; and I did not venture to tell 
him the scene we witnessed was the sign of a radical vice in 
the system of the American army, which is, I believe, incur- 
able in these large masses. Few soldiers would venture to 
draw their bayonets on a patrol. If they did, their punish- 
ment would be tolerably sure and swift, but for all I knew 
this man would be permitted to go on his way rejoicing. 
There is news of two Federal reverses to-day. A descent was 
made on Santa Rosa Island, and Mr, Billy Wilson's Zouaves 
were driven under the guns of Pickens, loshig in the scurry 
of the night attack — as prisoner only I am glad to say — ■ 
poor Major Vogdcs, of inquiring memory. Rosecrans, who 
utterly ignores tlie advantages of Shakspearian spelling, has 

been defeated in the West ; but D is quite happy, and 

goes off to New York contented. 

October loth. — Sir James Ferguson and Mr. R. Bourke, 
who have been travelling in the South and hjjve seen some- 
thing of the Confederate government and armies, visited us 
this evening after dinner. They do not seem at all desirous 
of testing by comparison the relative efficiency of the two 
armies, which Sir James, at all events, is competent to do. 
They are impressed by the enei'gy and animosity of the South, 
which no doubt will have their effect on England also ; but it 
Avill be difficult to popularize a Slave Republic as a new allied 
power in England. Two of General McClellan's aides dropped 
in, and the meeting abstained from general politics. 

October I6th. — Day follows day and resembles its predeces- 
sor. McClellan is still reviewing, and the North are still 
waiting for victories and paying money, and the orators are 
still wrangling over the best way of cooking the hares which 
they have not yet caught. I visited General McDowell to-day 
t his tent in Arlington, and found him in a state of divine 
calm with his wife and parvus lulus. A public man in the 
United States is very much like a great firework — he com- 
mences with some small scintillations which attract the eye of 
the public, and then he blazes up and fiares out in blue, 
purple, and orange fires, to the intense admiration of the mul- 
titude, and dying out suddenly is thought of no more, his place 
being taken by a fresh roraan candle or Catherine wheel which 



556 MY DIATIY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

is thought to be far finer than those which have just dazzled 
the eyes of the fickle spectators. Human nature is thus se- 
verely taxed. The Cabinet of State is like the museum of 
some cruel naturalist, who seizes his specimens whilst they 
are alive, bottles them u[), forbids them to make as much as a 
contortion, labelling them "My last President," "My latest 
Commander-in-chief," or " My defeated General," regarding 
the smallest signs of life very much as did the French petit 
maitre who rebuked the contortions and screams of the poor 
wretch who was broken on the wheel, as contrary to bien- 
seance. I am glad that Sir James Ferguson and Mr. Bourke 
did not leave without making a tour of inspection through the 
Federal camp, which tliey did to-day. 

October 17 th.' — Dies non. 

October 18th. — To-day Lord Lyons drove out with Mr. 
Seward to inspect the P"'ederal camps, which are now in such 
order as to be worthy of a visit. It is reported in all the papers 
that I am going to England, but I have not the smallest in- 
tention of giving my enemies here sucli a treat at present. 
As Monsieur de Beaumont of the French Legation said, " I 
presume you are going to remain in Washington for the rest 
of your life, because I see it stated in the New York journals 
that you are leaving us in a day or two." 

October 19th. — Loi'd Lyons and Mr. Seward were driving 
and dining together yesterday en. ami. To-day, Mr. Seward 
is engaged demolishing Lord Lyons, or at all events the Brit- 
ish Government, in a despatch, wherein he vindicates the 
proceedings of the' United States Government in certain ar- 
rests of British subjects which had been complained of, and 
repudiates the doctrine that the United States Government 
can be bound by the opinion of the law officers of the Crown 
respecting tlie spirit and letter of the American Constitution. 
This is published as a set-otF to Mr. Seward's circular on the 
eeacoast defences which created so much depression and alarm 
in the Northern States, where it was at the time considered as 
a warning that a foreign war was imminent, and which has 
since been generally condemned as feeble and injudicious. 

October 20th. — I saw General McClellan to-day, who gave 
me to understand that some small movement might take place 
on the right. I rode up to the Cliain Bridge and across it for 
some miles into Virginia, but all was quiet. The sergeant at 
the post on the south side of the bridge had some doubts of the 
genuineness of my pass, or rather of its bearer. 



THE OLD FIFTIETH. 557 

" I heard you were gone back to London, where I am com- 
ing to see you some fine day with the boys here." 

" No, sergeant, I am not gone yet, but when will your visit 
take place ? " 

" Oh, as soon as we have finished with the gentlemen across 
there." 

" Have you any notion when that will be ? " 

" Just as soon as they tell us to go and prevent the black- 
guard Germans running away." 

" But the Germans did not run away at Bull Run ? " 

" Faith, because they did not get a chance — sure they put 
them in the rear, away out of the fighting." 

" And why do you not go on now ? " 

" Well, that's the question we are asking every day." 

" And can any one answer it ? " 

" Not one of us can tell ; but my belief is if we had one of 
the old Fiftieth among us at the head of affairs we would soon 
be at them. I belonged to the old regiment once, but I got 
off and took up with shoe-making again, and faith if I sted in 
it I might have been sergeant-major by this time, only they 
hated the poor Roman Catholics." 

" And do you think, sergeant, you would get many of your 
countrymen who had served in the old army to fight the old 
familiar red jackets ? " " Well, sir, I tell you I hope my 
arm would rot before I would pull a trigger against the old 
fiftieth ; but we would wear the red jacket too — we have as 
good a right to it as the others, and then it would be man 
against man, you know ; but if I saw any of them cursed 
Germans interfering, I'd soon let daylight into them." The 
hazy dreams of this poor man's mind would form an excellent 
article for a New York newspaper, which on matters relating 
to England are rarely so lucid and logical. N^xt day was 
devoted to writing and heavy rain, through both of which, 
notwithstanding, I was assailed by many visitors and some 
scurrilous letters, and in the evening there was a Washington 
gathering of Englishry, Irishry, Scotchry, Yankees, and Ca- 
nadians. 

October '22d. — Rain falling in torrents. As I write, in 
come reports of a battle last night, some forty miles up the 
river, which by signs and tokens I am led to believe was 
unfavorable to tlie federals. They crossed the river intend- 
uig to move upon Leesl)iirg — were attacked by overwhelming 
forces and repulsed, l)ut inaintaiucd themselves on the right 



658 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

bank till General Banks reinforced them and enabled them to 
bold their own. McClellan has gone or is going at once to 
the scene of aotion. It was three o'clock before I heard the 
news, the road and country were alike unknown, nor had I 
friend or acquaintance in the army of the Upper Potomac. 
My horse was brought round however, and in company with 
Mr. Anderson, I rode out of Washington along the river till 
the falling evening warned us to retrace our steps, and we re- 
turned in pelting rain as we set out, and in pitchy darkness, 
without meeting any messenger or person with news from the 
battle-field. Late at night the White House was placed in 
deep grief by the intelligence that, in addition to other losses, 
Brigadier and Senator Baker of California was killed. The 
President was inconsolable, and walked up and down his room 
for hours lamenting the loss of his friend. Mrs. Lincoln's 
grief was equally poignant. Before bed-time I told the Ger- 
man landlord to tell my servant I wanted my horse round at 
seven o'clock. 

October 23rf. — Up at six, waiting for horse and man. At 
eight walked down to stables. No one there. At nine became 
very angry — sent messengers in all directions. At ten was 
nearly furious, when, at the last stroke of the clock, James, 
with his inexpressive countenance, perfectly calm nevertheless, 
and betraying no symptom of solicitude, appeared at the door 
leading my charger. " And may I ask you where you have 
been till this time ? " " Wasn't I dressing the horse, taking 
him out to water, and exercising him." " Good heavens ! did 
I not tell you to be here at seven o'clock ? " " No, sir ; Carl 
told me you wanted me at ten o'clock, and here I am." " Carl, 
did I not tell you to ask Jan^es to be round here at seven 
o'clock." " Not zeven clock, sere, but zehn clock. I tell 
him, you come at zehn clock." Thus at one blow was I 
stricken down by Gaul and Teuton, each of whom retired 
with the air of a man who had baffled an intended indignity, 
and had achieved a triumph over a wrong-doer. 

The roads were in a frightful state outside Washington — 
literally nothing but canals, in which earth and water were 
mixed together for depths varying from six inches to three 
feet above the surface ; but late as it was I pushed on, and iiad 
got as far as the turn of the road to Rockville, near the great 
falls, some twelve miles beyond Washington, when I met an 
officer with a couple of orderlies, hurrying back from General 
Banks's head-quarters, who told me the whole affair was over, 



A PUBLIC FUNERAL. 559 

and that I could not possibly get to the scene of action on one 
horse till next morning, even supposing that I pressed on all 
through the night, the roads being utterly villanous, and the 
country at night as black as ink ; and so I returned to Wash- 
ington, and was stopped by citizens, who, seeing the stream- 
ing liorse and splashed rider, imagined he was reeking from 
the fray. " As you were not there," says one, " I'll tell you 
what I know to be the case. Stone and Baker are killed ; 
Banks and all the other generals ai'e prisoners ; the Rhode 
Island and two other batteries are taken, and 5000 Yankees 
have been sent to H — to help old John Brown to roast nig- 
gers." 

October 2Uh. — The heaviest blow which has yet been in- 
flicted on the administration of justice in the United States, 
and that is saying a good deal at present, has been given to it 
in Washington. The judge of whom I wrote a few days ago in 
the habeas corpus case, has been placed under military arrest 
and surveillance by the Provost-Marshal of tlie city, a very 
fit man for such work, one Colonel Andrew Porter. The 
Provost- Marshal imprisoned the attorney who served the writ, 
and then sent a guard to Mr. Merrick's house, who thereupon 
sent a minute to his brother judges the day before yesterday 
stating the circumstances, in order to show why he did not ap- 
pear in his place on the bench. Tlie Chief Judge, Dunlop, and 
Judge Morsell thereupon issued their writ to Andrew Porter 
greeting, to show cause why an attachment for contempt should 
not be issued against him for his treatment of Judge Merrick. 
As the sharp tongues of women are very troublesome, the 
United States officers have quite little harems of captives, and 
Mrs. Merrick has just been added to the number. She is a j 
WicklitFe of Kentucky, and has a right to martyrdom. The 
inconsistencies of the Northern people multiply ad infinitum 
as they go on. Tluis at Hatteras they enter into terms of 
capitulation with officers signing themselves of the Confederate 
States Army and Confederate States Navy ; elsewhere they 
exchange prisoners ; at New York they are going through the 
farce of trying tlie crew of a C. S. privateer, as pirates engaged 
in robbing on the high seas, on " the authority of a pretended 
letter of marque from one Jefferson Davis." One Jeff Davis 
is certainly quite enough for them at present. 

Colonel and Senator Baker was honored by a ceremonial 
which was intended to be a public funeral, rather out of com- 
pliment to Mr. Lincoln's feelings, perhaps, than to any great 



560 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

attachment for tlie man himself, who fell gallantly fighting near 
Leesburg. There is need for a republic to contain some ele- 
ments of an aristocracy if it would make that display of pomp 
and ceremony which a public funeral should have to produce 
effect. At all events there should be some principle of rever- 
ence in the heads and hearts of the people, to make up for 
other deficiencies in it as a show, or a ceremony. The pro- 
cession down Pennsylvania Avenue was a tawdry, shabby 
string of hack carriages, men in light coats and white hats fol- 
i)wing the hearse, and three regiments of foot-soldiers, of 
it'hich one was simply an uncleanly, unwholesome looking rab- 
ble. The President, in his carriage, and many of the minis- 
ters and senators, attended also, and passed through unsympa- 
thetic lines of people on the curbstones, not one of whom 
raised his hat to the bier as it passed, or to the President, ex- 
cept a couple of Englishmen and myself who stood in the 
crowd, and that proceeding on our part gave rise to a variety 
of remarks among the by-standers. But as the band turned 
into Pennsylvania Avenue, playing something like the minuet 
de la cour in Don Giovanni, two officers in uniform came rid- 
ing up in the contrary direction ; they wei'e smoking cigars ; 
one of them let his fall on the ground, the other smoked lustily 
as the hearse passed, and reining up his horse, continued to 
puff his weed under the nose of President, ministers, and sen- 
ators, with the air of a man who was doing a very soldierly 
correct sort of a thing. 

Whether the President is angry as well as grieved at the 
loss of his favorite or not, I cannot affirm, but he is assuredly 
doing that terrible thing which is called putting his foot down 
on the judges ; and he has instructed Andrew Porter not to 
mind the writ issued yesterday, and has further instructed the 
United States Marshal, who has the writ in his hands to serve 
on the said Andrew, to return it to the court with the infor- 
mation that Abraham Lincoln has suspended the writ of habeas 
corpus in cases relating to the military. 

October 26th. — More reviews. To-day rather a pretty 
sight — twelve regiments, sixteen guns, and a few squads of 
men with swords and pistols on liorseback, called cavalry, 
comprising Fitz-John Porter's division. McClellan seemed 
to my eyes crestfallen and moody to-day. Bright eyes looked 
on him ; he is getting up something like a staff, among which 
are the young French princes, under the tutelage of their uncle, 
the Prince of Joinville. Whilst McClellan is reviewing, our 



STREET POLICE. 561 

Romans in "Washington are shivering ; for the blockade of the 
Potomac by the Confederate batteries stops the fuel boats. 
Little care these enthusiastic young American patriots in crin- 
oline, who have come to see McClellan and the soldiei-s, wiiat 
a cord of wood costs. The lower orders are very angry 
about it however. The nuisance and disorder arising from 
soldiers, drunk and sober, riding full gallop down the streets, 
and as fast as they can round the corners, has been stopped, 
by placing mounted sentries at the principal points in all the 
tiioroughfares. The "officers" were worse than the men; 
the papers this week contain the account of two accidents, in 
one of which a colonel, in another a major, was killed by falls 
from liorseback, in furious riding in the city. 

Forgetting all about this fact, and spurring home pretty fast 
along an unfrequented road, leading from the ferry at George- 
town into the city, I was nearly spitted by a " dragoon," who 
rode at me from under cover of a house, and shouted " stop," 
just as his sabre was within a foot of my head. Fortunately 
his horse, being aware that if it ran against mine it might be 
injured, shied, and over went dragoon, sabre and all, and off 
went his horse, but as the trooper was able to run after it, I 
presume he was not the worse ; and I went on my way re- 
joicing. 

McClellan has fallen very much in my opinion since the 
Leesburg disaster. He went to the spot, and with a little — 
nay, the least — promptitude and ability could have turned the 
check into a successful advance, in tlie blaze of which the 
earlier repulse would have been forgotten. It is whispered 
that General Stone, who ordered the movement, is guilty of 
treason — a common crime of unlucky generals — at all events 
he is to be displaced, and will be put under surveillance. The 
orders he gave are certainly very strange. 

The official right to fib, I presume, is very much the same 
all over the world, but still there is more dash about it in the 
States, I think, than elsewhere. "Blockade of the Potomac!" 
exclaims an official of the Navy Department. " Wliat are 
you talking of? The Department has just heard that a few 
Confederates have been practising with a few light field-pieces 
from the banks, and has issued orders to prevent it in futui-e." 

"Defeat at Leesburg! " cries little K , of McClellan's 

jtalf, " nothing of the kind. We droye the Confederates at 
all points, retained our position on the right bank, and only 
left it when we pleased, having whipped the enemy so severely 
24* 



562 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

they never showed since." " Any news, Mr. Cash, in the 
Treasury to-day ? " " Nothing, sir, except that Mr. Chase is 
highly pleased with everything ; he's only afraid of having too 
much money, and being troubled with his balances." " The 
State Department all right, Mr. Protocol ? " " My dear sir ! 
delightful I with everybody, best terms. Mr. Seward and the 
Count are managing delightfully ; most friendly assurances ; 
Guatemala particularly ; yes, and Fi-ance too. Yes, I may 
say France too ; not the smallest difficulty at Honduras ; al- 
together, with the assurances of support we are getting, the 
Minister thinks the whole affair will be settled in thirty days ; 
no joking, I assure you ; thirty days this time positively. Say 
for exactness on or about December 5th." The canvas-backs 
are coming in, and I am off for a day or two to escape reviews 
and abuse, and to see something of the famous wild-fowl shoot- 
ing on the Chesapeake. 

October 21th. — After church, I took a long walk round by 
the commissariat wagons, where there is, I think, as much 
dirt, bad language, cruelty to animals, and waste of public 
money, as can be conceived. Let me at once declare my 
opinion that the Americans, generally, are exceedingly kind 
to their cattle ; but there is a hybrid race of ruffianly wagon- 
ers here, subject to no law or discipline, and the barbarous 
treatment inflicted on the transport aninials is too bad even 
for the most unruly of mules. I mentioned the circumstance 
to General McDowell, who told me that by the laws of the 
United States there was no power to enlist a man for commis- 
sariat or transport duty. 

October 2%th. — Telegraphed to my friend at Baltimore 
that I was ready for the ducks. The Legation going to Mr. 
Kortwright's marriage at Philadelphia. Started with Lamy 
at six o'clock for Baltimore ; to Gihnore House ; thence to 
club. Every person present said that in ray letter on Mary- 
land I had understated the question, as far as Southern senti- 
ments were concerned. In the club, for example, there ai'e 
not six Union men at the outside. General Dix has fortified 
Federal Hill very efficiently, and the heights over Fort Mc- 
Henry are bristling with cannons, and display formidable 
earthworks ; it seems to be admitted that, but for the action 
of the Washington Government, the Legislature would pass 
an ordinance of Secession. Gilmore House — old-fasiiioned, 
good bedrooms. Scarcely had I arrived in the passage, than 
a man ran oflf with a paragraph to the papers that Dr. Russell 



CANVAS-BACK BUCKS. 563 

had come for the purpose of duck -shooting ; and, hearing that 
I was going with Taylor, put in that I was going to Taylor's 
Ducking Shore. It appeal's that there are considerable num- 
bers of these duck-clubs in the neighborhood of Baltimore. 
The canvas-back ducks have come in, but they will not be in 
perfection until the 10th of November ; their peculiar flavor 
is derived from a water-plant called wild celery. This lies at 
the depth of several feet, sometimes nine or ten, and the birds 
dive for it. 

October 2.9th. — At ten started for the shooting ground, 
Carroll's Island ; my companion, Mr. Pennington, drove me 
in a light trap, and Mr. Taylor and Lamy came with Mr. 
Tucker Carroll,* along with guns, &c. Passed out towards 
the sea, a long height commanding a fine view of the river ; 
near this was fought the battle with the English, at which the 
" Baltimore defenders " admit they ran away. Mr. Penning- 
ton's father says he can answer for the speed of himself and 
his companions, but still the battle was thought to be glorious. 
Along the posting road to Philadelphia, passed the Blue Ball 
Tavern ; on all sides except the left, great wooded lagoons 
visible, swarming with ducks ; boats are forbidden to fire upon 
the birds, which are allured by wooden decoys. Crossed the 
Philadelphia Railway three times ; land poor, covered with 
undergrowths and small trees, given up to Dutch and Irish 
and free niggers. Reached the duck-club-house in two hours 
and a half; substantial farm-house, with out-offices, on a strip 
of land surrounded by water ; Gunpowder River, Saltpetre 
River, facing Chesapeake ; on either side lakes and tidal 
water ; the owner, Slater, an Irishman, reputed very rich, 
selfmade. Dinner at one o'clock ; any number of canvas- 
back ducks, plentiful joints ; drink whiskey ; company. Swan, 
Howard, Duval, Morris, and others, also extraordinary speci- 
men named Smith, believed never to wash except in rain or 
by accidental sousing in the river. Went out for afternoon 
shooting ; birds witle and high ; killed seventeen ; back to 
supper at dusk. McDonald and a guitar came over ; had a 
negro dance ; and so to bed about twelve. Lamy got single 
bed ; I turned in with Taylor, as single beds ai*e not permitted 
when the house is full. 

October 30th. — A light, a grim man, and a voice in the 
room at four, a. m., awaken me ; I am up first ; breakfast ; more 
duck, eggs, meat, mighty cakes, milk ; to the gun-house, already 
* Since killed in action, fighting for the South at Antietam. 



564 MY DIARY NORTH ANT) SOUTH. 

hung with ducks, and then tramp to the " blinds " with Smith, 
who talked of the Ingines and wild sports in far Minnesota. 
As morning breaks, very red and lovely, dark visions and long 
streaky clouds appear, skimming along from bay or i*iver. The 
men in the blinds, which are square enclosures of reeds about 
4^ feet high, call out " Bay," " River," according to the direc* 
tion from which the ducks are coming. Down we go in blinds ; 
they come ; puffs of smoke, a bang, a volley ; one bird falls 
with flop ; another by degrees drops, and at last smites the 
sea ; there are five down ; in go the dogs. " Who shot that ? " 
" I did." " Who killed this ? " " That's Tucker's ! " "A good 
shot." " I don't know how I missed mine." Same thing again. 
The ducks fly prodigious heights — out of all range one would 
tiiink. It is exciting when the cloud does rise at first. Day 
voted very bad. Thence 1 move homeward ; talk with Mr. 
Slater till the trap is ready ; and at twelve or so, drive over 
to Mr. McDonald ; find Lamy and Swan there ; miserable 
shed of two-roomed shanty in a marsh ; rough deal presses ; 
whitewashed walls ; fiddler in attendance ; dinner of ducks 
and steak ; whiskey, and thence proceed to a blind or marsh, 
amid wooden decoys ; but there is no use ; no birds ; high tide 
flooding everything ; examined McDonald's stud ; knocked to 
pieces trotting on hai'd ground. Rowed back to house with 
Mr. Pennington, and returned to the mansion ; all the party 
had but poor sport ; but every one had killed something. 
Drew lots for bed, and won this time ; Lamy, however, would 
not sleep double, and reposed on a hard sofa in the parlor ; in- 
dications favorable for ducks. It was curious, in the early 
morning, to hear the incessant booming of duck -guns, along all 
the creeks and coves of the indented bays and salt-water 
marshes ; and one could tell when they were fired at decoys, 
or were directed against birds in the air ; heard a salute fired 
at Baltimore very distinctly. Lamy and Mr. McDonald met 
in their voyage up the Nile, to kill ennui and spend money. 

October "dXst.- — No, no, Mr. Smith ; it a'n't of no use. At 
four, A. M., we were invited, as usual, to rise, but Taylor and I 
reasoned from under our respective quilts, that it would be 
quite as good shooting if we got up at six, and I acted in ac- 
cordance with that view. Breakfasted as the sun was shining 
above the tree-tops, and to my blind — found there was no 
shooting at all — got one shot only, and killed a splendid can- 
vas-back — on returning to home, found nearly all the party 
on the move — 140 ducks hanging round the house, the re- 



CANVAS-BACKS AND RED-HEADS. 565 

ward of our toils, and of these I received egregious share. 
Drove back with Pennington, very sleepy, followed by Mr. 
Taylor and Lamy. I would have stayed longer if sport were 
better. Birds don't fly when the wind is in certain points, but 
lie out in great " ricks," as they are called, blackening the 
waters, drifting in the wind, or with wings covering their 
heads — poor defenceless things ! The red-head waits along- 
side the canvas-back till he comes up from the depths with 
mouth or bill full of parsley and wild celery, when he makes 
at him and forces him to disgorge. At Baltimore at 1*30 — 
dined — Lamy resolved to stay — bade good-by to Swan and 
Morris. The man at first would not take my ducks and boots 
to register or check them — twenty-five cents did it. 1 ar- 
rived at Washington late, because of detention of train by 
enormous transport ; labelled and sent out game to the houses 
till James's fingers ached again. Nothing doing, except that 
General Scott has at last sent in resignation. McClellan is 
now indeed master of the situation. And so to bed, rather 
tired. 



CHAPTER LVIIL 

General Scott's resignation — Mrs. A. Lincoln — Unofficial mission to 
Europe — Uneasy feclinj? with regard to France — Ball given by 
the United States cavalry — The United States army — Success 
at Beaufort — Arrests — Dinner at Mr. Seward's — News of Cap- 
tain Wilkes and the Trent — Messrs. Mason and Slidell — Dis- 
cussion as to Wilkes — Prince de Joinville — The American press 
on the Trent afRiir — Absence of thieves in Washington — 
" Thanksgiving Day " — Success thus tar in favor of the North. 

November \st. — Aj^ain stagnation; not the smallest inten- 
tion of moving ; General Scott's resignation, of which I wa.s 
aware long ago, is publicly known, and he is about to go to 
Europe, and end his days probably in France. McClellan 
lakes his place, minus the large salary. Riding back from 
camp, where I had some trouble with a drunken soldier, my 
horse came down in a dark hole, and threw me heavily, so 
that my hat was crushed in on my head, and my right tliumb 
sprained, but I managed to get up and ride home ; for the 
brute had fallen right on his own head, cut a piece out of his 
forehead between the eyes, and was stunned too much to run 
away. I found letters waiting from Mr. Seward and others, 
thanking me for the game, if canvas-backs come under the 
title. 

November 2</. — A tremendous gale of wind and rain blew 
all day, and caused much uneasiness, at the Navy Depart- 
ment and elsewhere, for the safety of the Burnside expedition. 
•The Secessionists are delighted, and those who can, say " Af- 
flavit Deus et hostes dissipantur." There is a project to send 
secret non-official commissioners to Europe, to counteract the 
machinations of the Confederates. Mr. Everett, Mr. R. Ken- 
nedy, Bisliop Hughes, and Bishoj) Mcllwainc; are designated 
for the office ; much is expected from the expedition, not only 
at home but abroad. 

November 3d. — For some reason or another, a certain set 
of papers have lately taken to flatter Mrs. Lincoln in the 
most noisome manner, wliilst others deal in»dark insinuations 
against her loyalty. Union principles, and honesty. The poor 



WASHINGTON GOSSIP. 567 

lady is loyal as steel to her family and to Lincoln the First ; 
but she is accesssible to the influence of flattery, and has per- 
mitted her society to be infested by men who would not be 
received in any respectable private house in New York. 
The gentleman who furnishes fashionable paragraphs for the 
Washington paper has some charming little pieces of gossip 
about " the first Lady in the Land '* this week ; he is doubt- 
less the same who, some weeks back, chronicled the details of 
a raid on the pigs in the streets by the police, and who con- 
cluded thus : '• We cannot but congratulate Officer Smith on 
the very gentlemanly manner in which he performed his dis- 
agreeable but arduous duties ; nor did it escape our notice, 
that Officer Washington Jones was likewise active and ener- 
getic in the discharge of his functions." 

The ladies in Washington delight to hear or to invent 
small scandals connected with the White House ; thus it is 
reported that the Scotch gardener left by Mr. Buchanan has 
been made a lieutenant in the United States Army, and has 
been specially detached to do duty at the White House, where 
he superintends the cooking. Another person connected with 
the establishment was made Commissioner of Public Build- 
ings, but was dismissed because he would not put down the 
expense of a certain state dinner to the public account, and 
charge it under the head of " Impi-ovement to the Grounds." 
But many m^re better tales than these go round, and it is not 
surprising if a woman is now and then put under €lose arrest, 
or sent oflf to Fort McHenry for too much esprit and inven- 
tiveness. 

November ith. — General Fremont will certainly be re- 
called. There is not the smallest incident to note. 

November bth. — Small banquets, very simple and toler- 
ably social, are the order of the day as winter closes around 
lis ; the country has become too deep in mud for pleasant ex- 
cursions, and at times the weather is raw and cold. General 
McDowell, who dined with us to-day, maintains there will be 
no difficulty in advancing during bad weather, because the 
men are so expert in felling trees, they can make corduroy 
roads wherever they like. 1 own the arguments surprised 
but did not convince me, and I think the General will find 
out his mistake when the time comes. Mr. Everett, whom I 
had expected, was summoned away by the unexpected intel- 
ligence of his soil's death, so I missed the opportunity of see- 
ing one whom I much desired to have met, as the great 



568 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Apostle of Washington worship, in addition to his claims to 
higher distinction. He has admitted that the only bond which 
can hold tiie Union together is the common belief in the 
grt-atness of the departed general. 

November 6th. — Instead of Mr. Everett and Mr. Johnson, 
Mr. Thurlow Weed and Bishop Hughes will pay a visit to 
Europe in the Federal interests. Notwithstanding the adula- 
tion of everything French, from the Emperor down to a 
Zouave's gaiter, in the New York press, there is an uneasy 
ieeling respecting the intentions of France, founded on thi 
notion that the Emperor is not very friendly to the Federalists, 
and would be little disposed to expose his subjects to privation 
and suffering from the scarcity of cotton and tobacco if, by in- 
tervention, he could avert such misfortunes. The inactivity 
of McClellan, which is not understood by the people, has 
created an under-current of unpopularity, to which his enemies 
are giving eveiy possible strength, and some people are begin- 
ning to think the youthful Napoleon is only a Brummagem 
Bonaparte. 

November 1th. — After such bad weather, the Indian sum- 
mer, I'ete de St. Martin, is coming gradually, lighting up the 
ruins of the autumn's foliage still clinging to the trees, giving 
us pure, bright, warm days, and sunsets of extraordinary loveli- 
ness. Drove out to Bladensburgh with Captain Hawortli, and 
discovered that my wagon was intended to go on to Richmond 
and never to turn back or round, tor no I'oads Tn this part of 
the countr}^ are wide enough for the purpose. Dined at the 
Legation, and in the evening went to a grand ball, given by 
the Sixth United States Cavalry in the Poor House near their 
camp, about two miles outside the city. 

The ball took place in a series of small whitewashed rooms 
off long passages and corridors ; many supper tables were 
spread ; whiskey, champagne, hot terrapin soup, and many luxu- 
ries graced the board, and although but two or three couple 
could dance in each room at a time, by judicious arrangemeut 
of the music several rooms were served at once. The Duke 
of Chartres, in the uniform of a United States Captain of 
Staff, was among the guests, and had to share the ordeal to 
which strangers were exposed by the hospitable entertainers, 
of drinking with them all. Some called him "Chatters" — 
others, "Captain Chatters;" but these were of the outside /;o^- 
loi, who cannot be kept out on such occasions, and who shake 
hands and are familiar with everybody. 



CAVALRY BALL. 569 

The Duke took it all exceedingly well, and laughed with 
the loudest in the company. Altogether the ball was a great 
success — somewhat man-ed indeed in my own case by the 
bad taste of one of" the olficers of the regiment wliich had 
invited uie, in adopting an offensive manner when about to be 
introduced to me by one of his brother officers. Colonel 
Emory, the officer in command of the regiment, interfered,! 

and, finding ihat Captain A was not sober, ordered him 

to retire. Another small contretemps was caused by the mas- 
ter of the Work House, who had been indulging at least as 
freely as the captain, and at last began to fancy that the pau- 
pers had broken loose and were dancing about after houi's be- 
low stairs. In vain he was led away and incarcerated in one 
room after another ; his intimate knowledge of the architectu- 
ral difficulties of the building enabled him to set all precau- 
tions at defiance, and he might be seen at intervals fiying along 
the passages towards the music, pursued by the officers, until 
he was finally secured in a dungeon without a window, and 
with a bolted and locked door between him and the ball- 
rooms. 

November Sth. — Colonel Emory made us laugh this morn- 
ing by an account of our Amphitryon of the night before, who 
came to him with a very red eye and curious expression of 
face to congratulate the regiment on the success of the ball. 
" Theniost beautiful thing of all was," said he, "Colonel, I 
did not see one gentleman or lady who had taken too much 
liquor ; there was not a drunken man in the whole company." 
I consulted my friends at the Legation with I'espect to our in- 
ebriated officer, on whose behalf Colonel Emory tendered his 
own apologies ; but they were of opinion I had done all that 
was right and becoming in the matter, and that I must take no 
more notice of it. 

November 9th. — Colonel Wilmot, R. A., who has come down 
from Canada to see the army, spent the day with Captain 
Dahlgren at the Navy Yard, and returned with impressions 
favorable to tlie system. He agrees with Dahlgren, who is 
dead against breach-loading, but admits Armstrong has done 
the most that can be effected with the system. Colonel Wil- 
mot avers the English press are responsible for the Armstrong 
guns. He has been much struck by the excellence of the 
great iron-works he has visited in the States, particularly that 
of iVIr. Sellers, in Philadelpliia. 

November 10th. — Visiting Mr. Mure the other day, who 



570 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

was still an invalid at Washington, I met a gentleman named 
Maury, who had come to Washington to see after a portman- 
teau whicli had been taken from him on the Canadian frontier 
by the police. He was told to go to the State Department and 
claim his property, ami on arriving there was arrested and con- 
fined witli a number of prisoners, my horse-dealing friend, 
Sammy Wroe, among them. We walked down to inquire 
how he was ; the soldier w)io was on duty gave a flourishing 
account of him — he had plenty of whiskey and food, "and," 
said the man, " I quite feel for Maury, because he does busi- 
ness in ray State." These State influences must be ovei'come, 
or no Union will ever hold together. 

Sir James Ferguson and Mr. Bourke were rather shocked 
when Ml. Seward opened the letters from persons in the South 
to friends in Europe, of which they had taken charge, and cut 
some passages out with a scissors ; but a Minister who com- 
bines the functions of Chief-of-Police with those of Secretary 
of State must do such things now and then. 

JVovember 11th. — The United States have now, according 
to the returns, 600,000 infantry, 600 pieces of artillery, 61,000 
cavalry in tiie field, and yet they are not only unable to crusli 
the Confederates, but they cannot conquer the Secession ladies 
in their capital. The Southern people here trust in a break- 
down in the North before the screw can be turned to the ut- 
most ; and assert that the South does not want corn, wheat, 
leather, or food. Georgia makes cloth enough for all — the 
only deficiency will be in metal and materiel of war. When 
the North comes to discuss the question whether the war is to 
be against slavery or for the Union leaving slavery to take 
care of itself, they think a split will be inevitable. Then the 
pressure of taxes will force on a solution, for the State taxes 
already amount to two to three per cent., and the people will 
not bear the addition. The North has set out with the prin- 
ciple of paying for evei'ything, the Soutli with the principle 
of paying for nothing; but this will be reversed in time. All 
the diplomatists, with one exce|)tion, are of opinion the Union 
is broken for ever, and the independence of the South virtu- 
ally established. 

November I'lth. — An irruption of dirty little boys in the 
streets shouting out, " Glorious Union victory ! Charleston 
taken ! " The story is that Burnside has landed and reduced 
the forts defending Port Royal. I met Mr. Fox, Assistant 
Secretary to the Navy, and Mr. Hay, Secretary to Mi-. Lin- 



NEWS OF ME. CHASE. 571 

coin, in the Avenue. The former showed me Burnside's de- 
spatches from Beaufort, announcing reduction of the Confeder- 
ate batteries by tlie ships and the estabhshment of the Federals 
on the skirts of Port Royal. Dined at Lord Lyons', where 
were Mr. Chase, Major Palmer, U. S. E., and his wife, Colonel 
and Mrs. Emory, Professor Henry and his daugliter, Mr. Ken- 
nedy and his daughter. Colonel Wilmot and the Englishry of 
Washington. I had a long conversation with Mr. Chase, who 
is still sanguine that the war must speedily terminate. The 
success at Beaufort has made him radiant, and he told me that 
the Federal General Nelson * — who is no other than the 
enormous blustering, boasting lieutenant in the navy whom I met 
at Washington on my first arrival — has gained an immense 
victory in Kentucky, killing and capturing a whole army and 
its generals. 

A strong Government will be the end of the struggle, but 
before they come to it there must be a complete change of ad- 
ministration and internal economy. Indeed, the Secretary of 
the Treasury candidly admitted that the expenses of the war 
were enormous, and could not go on at the present rate very 
long. The men are paid too highly ; every one is paid too 
much. The scale is adapted to a small army not very popu- ^ 
lar, in a country where labor is very well paid, and competition 
is necessary to obtain recruits at all. He has never disguised 
his belief the South might have been left to go*^t first, with a 
certainty of their return to the Union. 

November 13th. — Mr. Charles Green, who was my host at 
Savannah, and Mr. Low, of the same city, have been arrested 
and sent to Fort Warren. Dining with Mr. Seward, I heard 
accidentally that Mrs. Low had also been arrested, but was now 
liberated. The sentiment of dislike towards England is in- 
creasing, because English subjects have assisted the South by 
smuggling and running the blockade. " It is strange," said 
Mr. Seward the other day, " that this great free and civilized 
Union should be supported by Germans, coining here semi-civ- 
ilized or half-savage, who plunder and destroy as if they were 
living in the days of Agricola, whilst the Engli-h are the great .j\ 
smugglers who support our enemies in tiieir I'ebelliou." I re- 
minded him that the United States flag had covered the smug- 
glers who carried guns and materiel of war to Russia, although 
they were at pea.ce with France and England. '■ Yes, but 

* Since shot dead by the Federal General Jeff. C. Davis in a quar- 
rel at Nashville. 



572 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. ' 

then," said he, "that was a legitunate contest between great 
estabhshed powers, and I admit, tliough I lament the fact, that 
the public sympathy in this country ran with Russia during 
that war." The British public have a right to their sympathies 
too, and the Government can scarcely help it if private individ- 
uals aid the South on their own responsibility. In future, Brit- 
ish subjects will be indicted instead of sent to Fort La Fayette. 
Mr. Seward feels keenly the attacks in the " New York Tri- 
bune " on him for arbitrary arrests, and representations have 
been made to Mr. Greeley privately on the subject ; nor is he 
indifferent to similar English criticisms. 

General McDowell asserts there is no nation in the world 
whose censure or praise the people of the United States care 
about except England, and with respect to her there is a mor- 
bid sensitiveness which can neither be explained nor justified. 

It is admitted, indeed, by Americans whose opinions are 
valuable, that the popular feeling was in favor of Russia 
during the Crimean war. Mr. Raymond attributes the cir- 
cumstance to the influence of the large Irish element ; but I 
am inclined to believe it is partly due at least to the feeling 
of rivalry and dislike to Great Bi-itain, in which the mass gf 
the American people are trained by their early education, and 
also in some measure to the notion that Russia was unequally 
matched in tJie contest. 

Novemher^AtJi. — Rode to cavalry camp, and sat in front 
of Colonel Emory's tent with General Stoneman, who is chief 
of the cavalry, and Captain Pleasanton ; heard interesting 
anecdotes of the wild life on the frontiers, and of bushranging 
in California, of lassoing bulls and wild horses and buffaloes, 
and encounters with grizzly bears — interrupted by a one- 
armed man, who came to the Colonel for " leave to take away 
George." He spoke of his brother who had died in camp, 
and for whose body he had come, metallic coffin and all, to 
carry it back to his parents in Pennsylvania. 

I dined with Mr. Seward — Mr. Raymond, of New York, 
and two or three gentlemen, being the only guests. Mr. 
Lincoln came in whilst we were playing a rubber, and told 
some excellent West-country stories. " Here, Mr. President, 
we have got the two ' Times ' — of New York and of Lon- 
don — if they would only do what is right and what we want, 
all will go well." " Yes," said Mr. Lincoln, '• if the bad 
Times would go where we want them, good Times would be 
sure to follow." Talking over Bull Run, Mr. Seward re- < 



THE MASON AND SLIDELL AFFAIR. 573 

marked " that civilians sometimes displayed more courage 
than soldiers, bnt perhaps the courage was unprofessional. 
When we were cut off from Baltimore, and the United States 
troops at Annapolis were separated by a country swarming 
with malecontents, not a soldier could be found to undertake 
the journey and communicate with them. At last a civilian " 
— (I think he mentioned the name of Mr. Cassius Clay) — 
"volunteered and executed the business. So, after Bull Run, 
there was only one officer, General Sherman, who was doing 
anything to get the ti'oops into order when the President and 
myself drove over to see what we could do on that terrible 
Tuesday evening." Mr. Teakle Wallis and others, after the | 
Baltimore business, told him the people would carry his head | 
on their pikes ; and so he went to Auburn to see how matters ! 
stood, and a few words from his old friends there made him 
feel his head was quite right on his shoulders. 

November \bth. — Horse-dealers are the same all the world 
over. To-day comes one with a beast for which he asked 
£50. " There was a Government agent looking after this 
horse for one of them French princes, I believe, just as I was 
talking to the Kentuck chap that had him. ' John,' says he, 
' that's the best-looking horse I've seen in Washington this 
many a day.' ' Yes,' says I, ' and you need not look at him 
any more.' ' Why ? ' says he. ' Because,' says I, ' it's one 
that I want for Lord John Russell, of the London '• Times," ' 
says I, ' and if ever there was a man suited for a horse, or a 
horse that was suited for a man, they're the pair, and I'll give 
every cent I can raise to buy my friend, Lord Russell, that 
horse.' " I could not do less than purchase, at a small reduc- 
tion, a very good animal thus recommended. 

November l^th. — A cold, raw day. As I was writing, a 
small friend of mine, who appears like a stormy petrel in 
moments of great storm, fluttered into my room, and having 
chirped out .something about a "Jolly row," — "Seizure of 
Mason and Slidell," — "British flag insulted," and the like, 
vanished. Somewhat later, going down 17th Street, I met 
the French Minister, M. Mercier, wrapped in his cloak, com- 
ing from the British Legation. " Vous avez entendu quelque 
chose de nouveau?" " Mais non, excellence." And then, in- 
deed, I learned there was no doubt about the fact tliat Captain 
Wilkes, of the U. S. steamer " San Jacinto," had forcibly 
boarded the " Trent," British mail steamer, off the Bahamas, 
and had taken Messrs. Mason, Slidell, Eustis, and McCler- 



574 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

nantl from on board, by armed force, in defiance of the pro- 
tests of the captain and naval officer in charge of the mails. 
This was indeed grave intelhgence; and the French Minister 
considered the act a flagrant outrage, which could not for a 
moment be justified. 

I went to the Legation, and found the young diplomatists in 
the " Chancellerie " as demure and innocent as if nothing had 
happened, though perhaps they were a trifle more lively than 
usual. An hour later, and the whole affair was published in 
full in the evening papers. Extraordinary exultation pre- 
vailed in the hotels and bar-rooms. The State Department 
has made of course no communication respecting the matter. 
All the English are satisfied that Mason and his friends must 
be put on board an English mail packet from the " San Ja- 
cinto" under a salute. 

An officer of the United States navy — whose name I shall 
not mention here — came in to see the buccaneers, as the knot 
of English bachelors of Washington ai'e termed, and talk over 
the matter. " 01' course," he said, " we shall apologize, and 
give up poor Wilkes to vengeance, by dismissing him ; but 
under no circumstances shall we ever give up Mason and 
Slidell. No, sir ; not a man dare propose such a humiliation 
to our flag." He says that AVilkes acted on his own responsi- 
bility, and that the " San Jacinto" was coming home from the 
African station when she encountered the " Trent." Wilkes 
knew the rebel emissaries were on board, and thought he 
would cut a dash and get up a little sensation, being a bold 
and daring sort of a fellow, with a quarrelsome disposition and 
a great love of notoriety, but an excellent officer. 

November \lth. — For my sins I went to see a dress parade 
of the 6th Regular Cavalry early this morning, and under- 
went a small purgatory from the cold, on a bare plain, whilst 
the men and officers, with red cheeks and blue noses, mounted 
on horses with staring coats, marched, trotted, and cantered 
past. The papers contain joyous articles on the " Trent " 
affair, and some have got up an immense amount of learning 
at a short notice ; but I am glad to say we had no discussion 
in camp. There is scarcely more than one opinion among 
thinking people in Washington respecting the legality of the 
act, and the course Great Britain must pursue. All the For- 
eign Ministers, without exception, have called on Lord Lyons, 
— Russia, Fratice, Italy, Prussia, Denmark. All are of 
accord. 1 am not sure whether the important diplomatist 



CAPTAIN DALGREN. 575 

who represents the mighty interests of the Hanse Towns has 
not condescended to admit England has right on her side. 

November \Sth. — Tiiere is a storm of exultation sweepino- 
over the land. Wilkes is the hero of the hour. I saw Mr. 
F. Seward at the State Department at ten o'clock ; but, as at 
the British Legation tiie orders are not to speak of the trans- 
action, so at the State Department a judicious reticence is 
equally observed. The lawyers are busy furnishing argu- 
ments to the newspapers. The otficers who held their tongues 
at first, astonished at the audacity of the act, are delighted to 
find any arguments in its favor. 

I called at General McClellan's new head-quarters to get 
a pass, and on my way met the Duke of Chartres, who shook 
his young head very gravely, and regarded the occurrence 
with sorrow and apprehension. McClellan, I understand, 
advised the immediate surrender of the prisoners ; but the 
authorities, supported by the sudden outburst of public ap- 
proval, refused to take that step. I saw Lord Lyons, who 
appeared very much impressed by the magnitude of the crisis. 
Thence I visited the Navy Department, where Captain Dahl- 
gren and Lieutenant Wise discussed the affair. The former, 
usually so calm, has too much sense not to perceive the course 
England must take, and, as an American officer, naturally 
feels regret at what appears to be the humiliation of his Hag ; 
but he speaks with passion, and vows that if England avails 
herself of the temporary weakness of the United States to 
get back the rebel commissioners by threats of force, every 
American should make his sons swear eternal hostility to 
Great Britain. Having done wrong, stick to it ! Thus men's 
anger blinds them, and thus come wars. 

It is obvious that no Power could permit political offenders 
sailing as passengers in a mail-boat under its flag, from one 
neutral port to another, to be taken by a belligerent, though 
the recognition of such a right would be, perhaps, more ad- 
vantageous to England than to any other Power. But, not- 
withstanding these discussions, our naval friends dined and 
spent the evening with us, in company with some other officers. 

I paid my respects to the Prince of Joinville, with whom I 
had a long and interesting conversation, in the coui'se of 
which he gave me to understand he thought the seizure an 
untoward and uni.iappy event, which could not be justified on 
any grounds whatever, and that he had so expressed himself 
in the highest quarters. There are, comparatively, many 



676 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

English here at present, — Mr. Chaplin, Sir F. Johnstone, 
Mr. Weklon, Mr. Browne, and others, — and it may be read- 
ily imagined this affairs creates deep feeling and much discus- 
sion. 

November 19/A. — I rai'ely sat down to wi'ite under a sense 
of greater responsibility, for it is just possible my letter may 
contain the first account of the seizure of the Southern Com- 
missionei's which will reach England; and, having heard all 
opinions and looked at authorities, as far as I could, it appears 
to me that the conduct of the American officer, now sustained 
by his Government, is without excuse. I dined at Mr. Cor- 
coran's, where the Ministers of Prussia, Brazil, and Chili, 
and the Secretary of the French Legation, were present ; 
and, although we did not talk politics, enough was said to 
show there was no dissent from the opinion expressed by in- 
telligent and uninterested foreigners. 

November 20th. — To-day a grand review, the most re- 
markable feature of which was the able disposition made by 
General McDowell to march seventy infantry regiments, seven- 
teen batteries, and seven cavalry regiments, into a very con- 
tracted space, from the adjoining camps. Of the display itself 
I wrote a long account, which is not worth repeating here. 
Among the 55,000 men present there were at least 20,000 
Germans and 12,000 Irish. 

November 22nd. — All the American papers have agreed 
that the Trent business is quite according to law, custom, and 
international comity, and that England can do nothing. They 
cry out so loudly in this one key there is reason to suspect 
they have some inward doubts. General McClellan invited 
all the world, including myself, to see a performance given by 
Hermann, the 'conjurer, at his quarters, which will be aggra- 
vating news to the bloody-minded, serious people in New Eng- 
land. 

Day after day passes on, and finds our Micawbers in Wash- 
ington waiting forsomething to turn up. The Trent affair, hav- 
ing been proved to be legal and right beyond yea or nay, has 
dropped out of the minds of all save those who are waiting for 
news from England ; and on looking over my diary I can see 
nothing but memoranda relating to quiet rides, visits to cam[)s, 
conversations with this one or the other, a fresh outburst of 
anonymous threatening letters, as if 1 had anything to do with 
the Trent affair, and notes of small social reunions at our own 
rooms and the Washington houses which were open to us. 



THE PRESIDENT CALCULATES. 577 

November 2i)th. — I remarked the other evening that, with 
all the disorder in AVashington, there are no thieves. Next 
night, as we were sitting in our little symposium, a thirsty sol- 
dier knocked at tlie door for a glass of water. He was brought 
in and civilly treated. Under the date of the 27th, accordingly, 
I find it duly entered that " the vagabond vvlio came in for 
M'ater must have had a confederate, who got into the hall 
whilst we were attending to his comrade, for yesterday there 
was a great lamentation over cloaks and great-coats missing 
from the hall, and as the day wore on the area of plunder was 
extended. Carl discovers he has been robbed of his best 
clothes, and Caroline has lost her watch and many petti- 
coats." 

Thanksgiving Day on the 28th was celebrated by enormous 
drunkenness in the army. The weather varied between days 
of delicious summer — soft, bright, balmy and beautiful be- 
3'ond expression — and days of wintry storm, with torrents of 
rain. 

Some excitement was caused at the end of the montli by the 
report I had received information from England that the law 
officers of the Crown had given it as their o])inion that a 
United Slates man-of-war would be justified by Lord Stowell's 
decisions in taking Mason and Slidell even in the Biitish Chan- 
nel, if the Nashville transferred them to a British niail steamer. 
This opinion was called for in consequence of the Tuscarora ap- 
pearing in Soulliampton Water; and, having heard ot" it, I re- 
peated it in strict confidence to someone else, till at last Baron 
de Stoeckl came to ask rae if it was true. Receiving passen- 
gers from the Nashville, however, would have been an act of 
direct intercourse with an enemy's ship. In the case of the 
Trent the persons seized had come on board as lawful passen- 
gers at a neutral port. 

The tide of success runs strongly in favor of the North at 
present, although they generally get the worst of it in the small 
affairs in the front of Washington. The entrance to Savannah 
has been occupied, and by degrees the fleets are biting into the 
Confederate lines along the coast, and establishing positions 
which will afford bases of operations to tlie Federals hereafter, j 
The President and Cabinet seem in better spirits, and the for- \ 
mer indulges in quaint speculations, which he transfers even \ 
to State papers. He calculates, for instance, there are human 
beings now alive who may ere they die behold the United 
Slates peopled by 250 millions of souls. Talking of a high 
25 



578 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTU. 

prairie, in Illinois, he remarked, " that if all the nations of the 
earth were assembled there, a man standing on its top would 
see them all, for that the whole human race would fit on a 
space twelve miles square, which was about the extent of the 
plain." 



CHAPTER LIX. 

A Captain under arrest — Opening of Congress — Colonel D'Utassy — 
An ex-pugilist turned Senator — Mr. Cameron — Ball in the offi- 
cers' huts — Presentation of standards at Arlington — Dinner at 
Lord Lyons' — Paper currency — A polyglot dinner — Visit to 
Washington's Tomb — Mr. Chase's Report — Colonel Seaton — 
Unanimity of the South — Tlie Potomac blockade — A Dutch- 
American Crimean acquaintance — The American Lawyers on 
the Trent affair — Mr. Sumner — McClellan's Army — Impres- 
sions produced in America by the English Press on the aifair of 
the Trent — Mr. Sumner on the crisis — Mutual feelings of the 
two nations — Rumors of war with Great Britain. 

December \st. — A mixed party of American officers and 
English went to-day to tlie post at Great Falls, about sixteen 
or seventeen miles up the Potomac, and were well re[)aid by 
the charming scenery, and by a visit to an American military 
station in a state of nature. The captain in command told us 
over a drink that he was under arrest because he had refused 
to do duty as lieutenant of the guard, he being a captain. 
" But I have written to McClellan about it," said he, " and 

I'm d d if I stay under arrest more than three days longer." 

He was not aware that the General's brother, who is a captain 
on his staff, was sitting beside him at the time. This wortliy 
centurion further informed us he had shot a man dead a short 
time before for disobeying his orders. " That he did," said 
his sympathizing and enthusiastic orderly, " and there's the 
weapon that done it." The captain was a boot and shoe 
maker by trade, and had travelled across the isthmus before 
the railway was made to get orders for his boots. A hard, 
determined, tierce " sutor," as near a savage as might be. 

" And what will you do, captain," asked I, '' if they keep 
you in arrest ? " 

" Fight for it, sir. I'll go straight away into Penn.sylvania 
with my company., and we'll whip any two companies they can 
send to stop us." 

Mr. Sumner paid me a visit on my return from our excur- 



580 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

sion, and seems to think everything is in the best possible 
state. 

December 2d. — Congress opened to-day. Tlie Senate did 
nothing. In the House of Representatives some Buncombe 
resolutions were passed about Captain Wilkes, wlio has become 
a hero — "a great interpreter of international law," and also 
recommending that Messrs. Mason and Slidell be confined in 
felons' cells, in retaliation for Colonel Corcoran's treatment by 
the Confederates. M. Blondel, the Belgian minister, who was 
at the court of Greece during the Russian war, told me that 
when the French and EngHsh fleets lay in the Pirasus, a 
United States vessel, commanded, he thinks, by Captain 
Stringham, publicly received M. Persani, the Russian ambas- 
sador, on board, hoisted and saluted the Russian flag in the 
harbor, whereupon the French Admiral, Barbier de Tinan, 
proposed to tlie English Admiral to go on board the United 
States vessel and seize the Ambassador, which the British 
officer refused to do. 

December 3d. — Drove down to the Capitol, and was inti'o- 
duced to the floor of the Senate by Senator Wilson, and ar- 
rived just as Mr. Forney commenced reading the President's 
message, which was listened to with considerable interest. 
At dinner. Colonel D'Utassy, of the Garibaldi legion, who 
gives a curious account of his career. A Hungarian by birth, 
he went over from the Austrian service, and served under 
Bern ; was wounded and taken prisoner at Temesvar, and 
escaped from Spielberg, through the kindness of Count Ben- 
nigsen, making his way to Semlin, in the disguise of a servant, 
where Mr. Fonblanque, the British consul, protected him. 
Thence he went to Kossuth at Shumla, Anally .proceeded to 
Constantinople where he was engaged to instruct the Turkish 
cavalry ; turned up in the Ionian Islands, where he was en- 
gaged by the late Sir H. Ward, as a sort of secretary and 
interpreter, in which capacity he also served Sir G. LeMar- 
chant. In the United States he Avas earning his livelihood as 
a fencing, dancing, and language master ; and when the war 
broke out he exerted himselt" to raise a regiment, and succeded 
in completing his number in seventeen days, being all the time 
obliged to support himself by his lessons. I tell his tale as he 
told it to me. 

One of our friends, of a sporting turn, dropped in to-night, 
followed by a gentleman dressed in immaculate black, and of 
staid deportment, whose name I did not exactly catch, but 



THE PRESS RULES AMERICA. 581 

fancied it was that of a senator of some reputation. As the 
stranger sat next me, and was rubbing his knees nervously, I 
thought I would commence conversation. 

" It appears, sir, that affairs in the south-west are not so 
promising. May I ask you what is your opinion of the pre- 
sent prospects of the Federals in Missouri ? " 

I was somewhat disconcerted by his re{)ly, for rubbing his 
knees harder than ever, and imprecating his organs of vision 
in a very sanguinary manner, he said — 

" Well, d if I know what to think of them. They're 

a d rum lot, and they're going on in a d rum way. 

That's what I think." 

The supposed legislator, in fact, was distinguished in an- 
other arena, and was no other than a celebrated pugilist, who 
served his apprenticeship in the English ring, and has since 
graduated in honors in America. 

I dined with Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, where I met 
Mr. Forney, Secretary of the Senate, Mr. House, Mr. Wilke- 
son, and others, and was exceedingly interested by the slirewd 
conversation and candid manner of our host. He told me he 
once worked as a pi'inter in the city of Washington, at ten 
dollars a week, and twenty cents an hour for extra work at 
the cases on Sunday. Since that time he has worked onwards 
and upwards, and amassed a large fortune by contracts for 
railways and similar great undertakings. He sajs the press 
rules America, and that no one can face it and live ; which is 
about the worst account of the chances of an honest longevity I 
can well conceive. His memory is exact, and his anecdotes, 
albeit he has never seen any but Americans, or stirred out of 
the States, very agreeable. Once there lived at Washington 
a publican's daughter, named Mary O'Neil, beautiful, bold, and 
witty. She captivated a member of congress, who failed to 
make her less than his wife ; and by degrees Mrs. Eaton — 
who may now be seen in the streets of Washington, an old 
woman, still bright-eyed and, alas ! bright-cheeked, retaining 
traces of her great beauty — became a leading personage in 
the State, and ruled the imperious, rugged, old Andrew 
Jackson so completely, that he broke up his Cabinet and dis- 
missed his ministers on her account. In the days of her 
power she had done some trifling service to Mr. Cameron, 
and he has just repaired it by conferring some military ap- 
pointment on her grandcliild. 

The dinner which was preceded by deputations, was finished 



582 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

by one which came from the Far West, and was introduced 
by Mr. Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-President ; Mr. Owen 
Lovejoy, Mr. Bingham, and other ultra- Abolitionist members 
of Congress ; and then speeches were made, and healths were 
drunk, and toasts were pledged, till it was time for me to drive 
to a ball given by the officers of the 5th United States 
Cavalry, which was exceedingly pretty, and admirably ar- 
ranged in wooden huts, specially erected and decorated for 
the occasion. A huge bonfire in the centre of the camp, sur- 
rounded by soldiers, by the carriage drivers, and by negro 
servants, afforded the most striking play of color and variety 
of light and shade I ever beheld. 

December 4th. — To Arlington, where Senator Ira Harris 
presented flags — that is, standards — to a cavalry regiment 
called after his name ; the President, Mrs. Lincoln, ministers, 
generals, and a large gathering present. Mr. Harris made a 
very long and a very fierce speech ; it could not be said Tra 
furor hrevis est ; and Colonel Davis, in taking the standard, 
was earnest and lengthy in reply. Then a barrister pre- 
sented color No. 2 in a speech full of poetical quotations, 
to which Major Kilpatrick made an excellent answer. Though 
it was strange enough to hear a political disquisition on the 
causes of the rebellion from a soldier in full uniform, the pro- 
ceedings were highly theatrical and very effective. " Take, 
then, this flag," &c. — " Defend it with your," &c. — " Yes, sir, 
we will guard this sacred emblem with — ," &c. The regi- 
ment then went through some evolutions, which were brought 
to an untimely end by &.fett dii joie from the inf.mtry in the 
rear, which instantly broke up the squadrons, and sent them 
kicking, plunging, and falling over the field, to the great 
amusement of the crowd. 

Dined with Lord Lyons, where was Mr. Gait, Financial 
Minister of Canada ; Mr. Stewart, who has arrived to replace 
Mr. Irvine, and others. In our rooms, a grand financial dis- 
cussion took place in honor of Mr. Gait, between ]\Ir. Butler 
Duncan and others, the former maintaining that a general issue 
of national paper was inevitable. A very clever American 
maintained that the North will be split into two great parlies 
by the result of the victory which they are certain to gain over 
the South — that the Democrats will offer the South conces- 
sions more liberal than they could ever dream of, and that 
both will unite against the Abolitionists and Black Repub- 
licans. 



VISIT TO THE GARIBALDI GUARD, 583 

Decemher Gth. — Mr. Ili,2;,2;s says the paper currency schema 
will produce money, and make every man richer. He is a 
banker, and ought to know ; but to my ignorant eye it seems 
likely to prove most destructive, and I confess, that whatever 
be the result of this war, I have uo desire for the ruin of so 
many happy communities as have sprung up in the United 
States. Had it been possible for human beings to employ 
popular institutions without intrigue and miserable self-seeking, 
and to be superior to faction and party passion, the condition 
of parts of the United States must cause regret that an exemp- 
tion from the usual laws which regulate human nature was not 
made in America ; but the strength of the United States — 
directed by violent passions, by party interest, and by selfish 
intrigues — was becoming dangerous to the peace of other 
nations, and therefore there is an utter want of sympathy with 
them in their time of trouble. 

I dined with Mr. Gait, at Willard's, where we had a very 
pleasant party, in spite of financial dangers. 

December It/i. — A visit to the Garibaldi Guard with some 
of the Englishry, and an excellent dinner at the mess, whicli 
presented a curious scene, and was graced by sketches from a 
wonderful polyglot chaplain. Wiiat a company ! — the ofli- 
cers present were composed as follows : — Five Spaniards, 
six Poles and Hungarians, two Frenchmen — the most sol- 
dierly-looking men at table — one American, four Italians, 
and nine Teutons of various States in Germany. 

December 8th. — A certain excellent Colonel who com- 
mands a French regiment visited us to-day. When he came 
to Washington, one of the Foreign Ministers who had been 
well acquainted with him said, " My dear Colonel, what a pity 
we can be no longer friends." " Why so. Baron ? " " Ah, 
we can never dine together again." " Why not ? Do you for- 
bid me your table ? " " No, Colonel, but how can I invite a 
man who can command the services of at least 200 cooks in 
his own regiment ? " " Well then, Baron, you can come and 
dine with me." What ! how do you think I could show my- 
self in your camp — how could I get my liair dressed to sit at 
the table of a man who commands 300 coiffeurs? I rode out 
to overtake a party who had started in carriages for Mount 
Vernon to visit AVashington's tomb but missed them in the 
wonderfully wooded country which borders the Potomac, 
and returned alone. 

December dth. — Spent the day over Mr. Chase's report, a 



584 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

copy of which he was good enough to send me with a kind 
note, and went out in the evening with my head in a state of 
wild financial confusion, and a general impression that the 
financial system of Pingland is very unsound. 

December lOth. — Paid a visit to Colonel Seaton, of the 
"National Intelligencer," a man deservedly respected and es- 
teemed for his private character, which has given its im- 
press to the journal he has so long conducted. Tlie New 
York papers ridicule the Washington organ, because it does 
not spread false reports daily in the form of telegraphic '" sen- 
sation " news, and indeed one may be pretty sure that a fact 
is a fact when it is found in the " Intelligencer ; " but the man, 
nevertheless, who is content with the information he gets from 
it, will have no reason to regret, in the accuracy of his knowl- 
edge or the soundness of his views, that he has not gone to 
its noisy and mendacious rivals. In the minds of all the 
very old men in the States, there is a feeling of great sadness 
and despondency respecting the present troubles, and though 
they cling to the idea of a restoration of the glorious Union 
of their youth, it is hoping against hope. " Our game is played 
out. It was the most wonderful and magnificent career of 
success the world ever saw, but rogues and gamblers took up 
the cards at last ; they quarrelled, and are found out." 

In the evening, supped at Mr. Forney's, where there was 
a very large gathering of gentlemen connected with the press; 
Mr. Cameron, Seci'etary of War ; Colonel Mulligan, a tall 
young man, with dark hair falling on his shoulders, round a 
Celtic impulsive face, and a hazy enthusiastic-looking eye ; 
and other celebrities. Terrapin soup and canvas-backs, 
speiiches, orations, music, and song, carried the company on- 
wards among the small hours. 

December llth. — The unanimity of the people in the South 
is forced on the conviction of the statesmen and people of the 
North, by the very success of their expeditions in Secession, 
They find the planters at Beaufort and elsewhere burning 
their cotton and crops, villages and towns deserted at their 
approach, hatred in every eye, and curses on women's touijues. 
They meet this by a corresponding change in their own pro- 
gramme. The war which was made to develop and maintain 
Union sentiment in the South, and to enable the people to 
rise against a desperate faction which had enthralled them, is 
now to be made a crusade against slaveholders, and a war of 
subjugation — if need be, of extermination — against the whole 



BRIGADIER BOHLElSr. 585 

of tlie Southern States. The Democrats will, of course, resist 
this barbarous and hopeless policy. There is a deputation of 
Irish Democrats here now to effect a general exchange of 
prisoners, which is an operation calculated to give a legiti- 
mate character to the war, and is pro tanto a recognition of 
the Confederacy as a belligerent power. 

December 1 2th. — The navy are writhing under the dis- 
grace of the Potomac blockade, and deny it exists. The 
price of articles in Washington which used to come by the 
river affords disagreeable proof to the contrary. And yet 
there is not a true Yankee in Pennsylvania Avenue who does 
not believe, what he reads every day, that his glorious navy 
could sweep the fleets of France and England off the seas to- 
morrow, though the Potomac be closed, and the Confederate 
batteries throw their shot and shell into the Federal camps on 
the other side. I dined with General Butterfield, whose camp 
is pitched in Virginia, on a knoll and ridge from which a 
splendid view can be had over the wooded vales and hills ex- 
tending from Alexandria towards Manassas, whitened wit!i 
Federal tents and huts. General Fitz-John Porter and 
General McDowell were among the officers present. 

December 12th. — A big-bearded, spectacled, mustached, 
spurred, and booted officer threw himself on my bed this 
morning ere I was awake. " Russell, my dear friend, here 
you are at last ; what ages have passed since we met ! " I 
sat up and gazed at my friend. " Bohlen ! don't you remem- 
ber Bohlen, and our rides in Turkey, our visit to Shumla and 
Pravady, and all the rest of it ? " Of course I did. I re- 
membered an enthusiastic soldier, with a fine guttural voice, 
and a splendid war-saddle and saddle-cloth, and brass stirrups 
and holsters, worked with eagles all over, and a uniform coat 
and cap with more eagles Hying amidst laurel leaves and 
U. S.'s in gold, Avho came out to see the fighting in the East, 
and made up his mind that there would be none, when he 
arrived at Varna, and so started off incontinent up tlie Dan- 
ube, and returned to the Crimea when it was too late ; and a 
very good, kindly, warm-hearted fellow was the Dutch-Ameri- 
can, who — once more in his war paint, this time acting Brig- 
adier-General * — renewed the memories of some pleasant 
days far away ; and our talk was of canvasses and khans, and 

* Since killed in action in Pope's retreat from the north of Rich- 
mond. 

25* 



586 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

tchibouques, and pashas, till his time was up to return to his 
fighting Germans of Blenker's division. 

He was not the good-natured officer who said the other day, 
" The next day you come down, sir, if ray regiment happens 
to be on picket duty, we'll have a little skirmish with the 
enemy, just to show you how our fellows are improved." 
" Perhaps you might bring on a general action, Colonel." 
" Well, sir, we're not afraid of that, either ! Let 'em come 
on." Jt did so happen that some young friends of mine, of 
H. M.'s 30th, who had come down from Canada to see the 
army here, went out a day or two ago with an officer on Gen- 
ei-al Smith's staff, formerly in our army, who yet suffers from 
a wound received at the Alma, to have a look at the enemy 
with a detachment of men. The enemy came to have a look 
at them, whereby it happened that shots were exchanged, and 
the bold Britons had to ride back as hard as they conld, for 
their men skedaddled, and the Secession cavalry slipping after 
them, had a very pretty chase for some miles ; so the oOth 
men saw more than they bargained for. 

Dined at Baron Gerolt's, where I had the pleasure of meet- 
ing Judge Daly, who is perfectly satisfied the English lawyers 
have not a leg to stand upon in the Trent case. On the faith 
of old and very doubtful, and some purely supposititious, cases, 
the American lawyers have made up their minds that the seiz- 
ure of the " rebel " ambassadors was perfectly legitimate and 
normal. The Judge expressed his belief that if there was a 
rebellion in Ireland, and that Messrs. Smith O'Brien and 
O'Gorman ran the blockade to France, and were going on 
their passage from Havre to New York in a United States 
steamer, they would be seized by the first British vessel that 
knew the fact. " Granted ; and what would the United 
States do ? " "I am afraid we should be obliged to demand 
that they be given up ; and if you were strong enough at the 
time, I dare say you would fight sooner than do so." Mr.' \ 
Sumner, with whom I had some conversation this afternoon, \ 
affects to consider the question eminently suitable for refer- ] 
ence and arbitration. ,^^''' 

In spite of drills and parades, McClellan has not got an 
army yet. A good officer, who served as brigade-major in 
our service, told me the men were little short of mutinous, 
with all their fine talk, though they could fight well. Some- 
times they refuse to mount guard, or to go on duty not to their 
tastes; officers refuse to serve under others to whom they have 



DINNER AT MR. SEWARD'S. 587 

a dislike ; men offer similar personal objections to officers. 
McClellan is enforcing discipline, and really intends to execute 
a most villanous deserter this time. 

December 15th. — The first echo of the San Jacinto's guns 
in England revei'berated to the United States, and produced 
a profound sensation. The people had made up their minds 
John Bull would acquiesce in the seizure, and not say a word 
about it ; or they affected to think so ; and the cry of anger 
which has resounded through the land, and the unmistakable 
tone of the British press, at once surprise and irritate and 
disappoint them. The American journals, nevertheless, pre- 
tend to think it is a mere vulgar excitement, and that the press 
is " only indulging in its habitual bluster." 

December l^Sth. — I met Mr. Seward at a ball and cotillon 
party, given by JM. de Lisboa ; and as he was in very good 
humor, and was inclined to talk, he pointed out to the Prince 
of Joinville, and all who were inclined to listen, and myself, 
how terrible the effects of a war would be if Great Britain 
forced it on the United States. " We will wrap the whole 
world in flames ! " he exclaimed. " No power so remote that 
she will not feel the fire of our battle and be burned by our 
conflagation." It is inferred that Mr. Seward means to show 
fight. One of the guests, however, said to me, " Tliat's all 
bugaboo talk. When Seward talks that way he means to 
break down. He is most dangerous and obstinate wlien he 
pretends to agree a good deal vj-ith you." The young French 
Princes, and the young and pretty Brazilian and American 
ladies, danced and were happy, notwithstanding the storms 
Avithout. 

Next day I dined at Mr. Seward's, as the Minister had 
given carte blanche to a very lively and agreeable lady, who 
has to lament over an absent husband in this terrible war, to 
ask two gentlemen to dine with him, and she had been pleased 
to select myself and M. de Geoffroy, Secretary of the French 
Legation, as her thick and her thin umbrce ; and the company 
went off in the evening to the White House, where there was a 
reception, whereat I imagined I might be de trop, and so home. 

Mr. Seward was in the best s{)irits, and told one or two 
rather long, but very pleasant, stories. Now it is evident he 
must by this time know Great Britain has resolved on the 
course to be pursued, and his good humor, contrasted with the 
irritation he displayed in May and June, is not intelligible. 

The Russian Minister, at whose house I dined next day, is 



588 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

better able than any man to appreciate the use made of the 
Czar's professions of regret for the evils which distract the 
States by the Americans ; but it is the fashion to approve of 
everything that France does, and to assume a violent affection 
for Russia. The Americans are irritated by war })reparations 
on the part of England, in case the Government of Washington 
do not accede to their demands ; and, at the same time, much 
annoyed that all European nations join in an outcry against 
the famous project of destroying the Southern harboi's by the 
means of the stone fleet. 

December 20th. — I went down to the Senate, as it was ex- 
pected at the Legation and elsewhere the President would 
send a special message to the Senate on the Trent affair ; but 
instead, there was merely a long speech from a senator, to 
show the South did not like democratic institutions. Lord 
Lyons called on Mr. Seward yesterday to read Lord Russell's 
despatch to him, and to give time for a reply ; but Mr. Seward 
was out, and Mr. Sumner told me the Minister was down with 
the Committee of Foreign Relations, where there is a serious 
business in reference to the State of Mexico and certain J^uro- 
pean Powers under discussion, when the Britisli Minister went 
to the State Department. 

Next day Lord Lyons had two interviews with Mr. Seward, 
read the despatch, which simply asks for surrender of Mason 
and Slidell and reparation, without any specific act named, but 
he received no indication from ]Mr. Seward of the course he 
would pursue. Mr. Lincoln has " put down his foot " on no 
surrender. " Sir ! " exclaimed the President, to an old Treas- 
ury official the other day, "I would sooner die than give them 
up." " Mr. President," was the reply, " your death would be a 
great loss, but the destruction of the United States would be a 
still more deplorable event." 

Mr. Seward will, however, control the situation, as the Cab- 
inet will very probably support his views ; and Americans will 
comfort themselves, in case the captives are surrendered, with 
a promise of future revenge, and with the reflection that they 
have avoided a very disagreeable intervention between their 
inarch of conquest and the Soutiiern Confederacy. Tiie gen- 
eral belief of the diplomatists is, that the prisoners will not be 
given up, and in that case Lord Lyons and the Legation will 
retire from Washington for the time, probably to Halifax, 
leaving Mr. Monson to wind up affairs and clear out the ar- 
chives. But it is understood that there is no ultin^.atum, 



LORD LYONS AND MR. SEWARD. 589 

and that Lord Lyons is not to indicate any course of action, 
should Mr. Seward inform him the United States Government 
refuses to comply with the demands of Great Britain. 

Any humiliation which may be attached to concession will 
be caused by the language of the Americans themselves, wh.o 
have given in their press, in public meetings, in the Lower 
House, in the Cabinet, and in the conduct of the President, a 
complete ratification of the act of Captain Wilkes, not to 
speak of the opinions of the Lawyers, and the speeches of 
their orators, who declare " they will face any alternative, but 
that they will never surrender." The friendly relations which 
existed between ourselves and many excellent Americans are 
now rendered somewhat constrained by the prospect of a great 
national difference. 

December (Sunday) 22J. — Lord Lyons saw Mr. Seward 
again, but it does not appear that any answer can be expected 
before Wednesday. All kinds of rumors circulate through 
the city, and are repeated in an authoritative manner in the 
New York papers. 

December 23d. — There was a tremendous storm, which 
drove over the city and shook the houses to the foundation. 
Constant interviews took place between the President and 
members of the Cabinet, and so certain are the people that 
war is inevitable, that an officer connected with the executive 
of the Navy Department came in to tell me General Scott 
was coming over from Europe to conduct the Canadian cam- 
paign, as he had thoroughly studied the geography of the 
country, and that in a very short time he would be in posses- 
sion of every strategetic position on the frontier, and chaw up 
our reinforcements. Late in the evening, Mr. Ohnsted called 
to say he had been credibly informed Lord Lyons had quar- 
relled violently with Mr. Seward, had flown into a great pas- 
sion with him, and so departed. The idea of Lord Lyons being 
quarrelsome, passionate, or violent, was preposterous enough to 
those who knew him ; but the American papers, by repeated 
statements of the sort, have succeeded in persuading tlieir 
public that the British Minister is a plethoric, red-faced, large- 
stomached man in top-boots, knee-breeches, yellow waistcoat, 
blue cut-away, brass buttons, and broad-brimmed hat, who is 
continually walking to the State Department in company with 
a large bulldog, hurling defiance at Mr. Seward at one mo- 
ment, and the next rushing home to receive despatches from 
Mr. Jefferson Davis, or to nive secret instructions to the Brit- 



590 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ish Consuls to run cargoes of quinine and gunpowder through 
the Federal blockade. I was enabled to assure Mr. Olmsted 
that there was not the smallest foundation for the story ; but 
he seemed impressed with a sense of some great calamity, 
and told me there was a general belief that England only 
wanted a pretext for a quarrel with the United States ; nor 
could I comfort him by the assurance that there were good 
reasons for thinking General Scott would very soon annex 
Canada, in case of war. 



CHAPTER LX. 

News of the death of the Prince Consort — Mr. Sumner and the Trent 
aflair — Despatch to Lord Russell — The Southern Conunission- 
ers given up — P^flects on the friends of the South — My own un- 
popularity at New York — Attack of fever — My tour in Canada 
— My return to New York in February — Successes of the West- 
em States — Mr. Stanton succeeds Mr. Cameron as Secretary of 
"War — Reverse and retreat of McClellan — My free pass — The 
Merrimac and Monitor — My arrangement to accompany McClel- 
lan's head-quarters — Mr. Stanton refuses his sanction — National 
vanity wounded by my truthfulness — My retirement and return 
to Europe. 

December 2Uh. — This evening came in a telegram from 
Europe with news which cast the deepest gloom over all our 
little English circle. Prince Albert dead ! At first no one 
believed it ; then it was remembered that private letters by 
the last mail had spoken despondingly of his state of health, 
and that the " little cold " of which we had heard was de- 
scribed in graver terms. Prince Albert dead ! " Oh, it may 
be Prince Alfred," said some ; and sad as it would be for the 
Queen and the public to lose the Sailor Prince, the loss could 
not be so great as that which we all felt to be next to the 
greatest. The preparations which we had made for a little 
festivity to welcome in Christmas morning were chilled by the 
news, and the eve was not of the joyous character which 
Englishmen delight to give it, for the sorrow which fell on all 
hearts in England had spaimed the Atlantic, and bade us 
mourn in common with the country at home. 

December 2oth. — Lord Lyons, who had invited the English 
in Washington to dinner, gave a small quiet entertainment, 
fi-om which he retired early. 

December 2Gth. — No answer yet. There can be but one. 
Press, people, soldiers, sailors, ministers, senators, congress- 
men, people in the street, the voices of the bar-room — all are 
agreed. " Give them up ? Never ! We'll die first ! " Sen- 
ator Sumner, M. De Beaumont, M. De GeofFroy, of the 
French Legation, dined with me, in company with General 



592 MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

Van Yliet, Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Lamy, &c. ; and in the 
evening Major Anson, M. P., Mr. Johnson, Captain Irwin, 
U. S. A., Lt. Wise, U. S. N., joined our party, and after nuich 
evasion of the subject, the English despatcli and INIr. Seward's 
decision turned up and caused some discussion. Mr. Sumner, 
who is Cliairman of the Commiltee on Foreign Rehitions in 
the Senate, and in that capacity is in intimate rapport with 
the President, either is, or affects to be, incredulous respecting 
the nature of Lord Russell's despatch this evening, and argues 
that, at the very utmost, the Trent aflfair can only be a matter 
for mediation, and not for any peremptory demand, as tlie law 
of nations has no exact precedent to bear upon the case, and 
that there are so many instances in which Sir W. Scott's 
(Lord Stowell's) decisions in principle appear to justify Cap- 
tain Wilkes. All along he has held this language, and has 
maintained that at the very worst there is plenty of time for 
protocols, despatches, and references, and more than once he 
has said to me, " I hope you will keep the peace ; help us to 
do so," — the peace having been already broken by Captain 
Wilkes and the Government. 

December 21th. — This morning Mr. Seward sent in his re- 
ply to Lord Russell's despatch — "grandis et vei'bosa epistola." 
The result destroys my prophecies, for, after all, the Southern 
Commissioners or Ambassadors are to be given up. Yester- 
day, indeed, in an under-current of whispers among the de- 
sponding friends of the South, there went a rumor that the 
Government had resolved to yield. What a collapse ! What 
a bitter mortification ! I had scarcely finished the perusal of 
an article in a Washington paper, — which, let it be understood, 
is an oi'gan of Mr. Lincoln, — stating that "Mason and Sli- 
dell would not be surrendered, and assuring the people they 
need entertain no apprehension of such a dishonorable con- 
cession," when I learned beyond all possibility of doubt, that 
Mr. Seward had handed in his despatch, placing the Commis- 
sioners at the disposal of the British Blinister. A copy of the 
despatch will be published in the "National Intelligencer" to- 
morrow morning at an early hour, in time to go to Europe by 
the steamer which leaves New York. 

After dinner, those who were in the secret were amused by 
hearins; the ar";uments which were started between one or 
two Americans and some English in the company, in conse- 
quence of a positive statement from a gentleman who came 
in, that Mason and Slidell had been surrendered. I have re- 



SURRENDER OF MASON AND SEIDELL. 505 

solved to go to Boston, being satisfied that a great jjopular 
excitement and uprising will, in all probability, take place on 
the discharge of the Commissioners from Fort Warren. 
What will my friend, the general, say, who told me yesterday 
" he would snap his sword, and throw the pieces into the 
White House, if they were given up?" 

December 2Slh. — The "National Intelligencer" of this 
morning contains the despatches of Lord Russell, M. Thouvenel, 
and Mr. Seward. The bubble has burst. The rage of the 
fi'iends of compromise, and of the South, who saw in a war with 
Great Britain the complete success of the Confederacy, is deep 
and burning, if not loud; but they all say they never expected 
anything better from the cowardly and braggart statesmen who 
now rule in Washington. 

Lord Lyons has evinced the most moderate and conciliatory 
spirit, and has done everything in his power to break Mr. 
Seward's fall on the softest of eider down. Some time ago we 
"were all prepared to hear nothing less would be accepted than 
Captain Wilkes taking Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board the 
San Jacinto, and transferring them to the Trent, under a sa- 
lute to the flag, near the scene of the outrage ; at all events, 
it was expected that a British man-of-war vvoidd have steamed 
into lioston, and received the prisoners under a salute from 
Fort Warren ; but Mr. Seward, apprehensive that some out- 
rage would be offered by the jjopulace to the prisoners and the 
British Flag, has asked Lord Lyons that the Southern Com- 
missioners may be placed, as it were, surreptitiously, in a 
United States boat, and carried to a small seaport in the State 
of Maine, where they are to be placed on board a British ves- 
sel as quietly as possible ; and this exigent, imperious, tyran- 
nical, insulting British Minister has cheerfully acceded to the 
request. Mr. Conway Seymour, the Queen's messenger, who 
brought Lord Russell's despatch, was sent back with instruc- 
tions tor the British Admiral, to send a vessel to Province- 
town for the purpose ; and as Mr. Johnson, who is nearly 
connected with Mr. Eustis, one of the prisoners, proposed 
going to Boston to see his brother-in-law, if possible, ere he 
started, and as there was not the smallest prospect of any 
military movement taking place, I resolved to go northwards 
with him ; and we left Washington accordingly on the morn- 
ing of the olst of December, and arrived at the New York 
Hotel the same night. 

To my great regret and surprise, however, I learned it 



594 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

i 
would be impracticable to get to Fort Warren and see the 
prisoners before their surrender. My unpopularity, v/hich 
had lost somewhat of its intensity, was revived by the exasper- 
ation against everything English, occasioned by the firmness 
of Great Britain in demanding the Commissioners ; and on 
New Year's Night, as I heard subsequently, Mr. Grinnel and 
other members of the New York Club were exposed to an- 
noyance and insult, by some of their brother members, in con- 
sequence of inviting me to be their guest at the club. 

The illness which had prostrated some of tlie strongest mei 
in Washington, including General McClellan himself, developei 
itself as soon as I ceased to be sustained by the excitement, 
such as it was, of daily events at the capital, and by expecta- 
tions of a move ; and for some time an attack of typhoid fever 
confined me to my room, and left me so weak that I was ad- 
vised not to return to Washington till I had tried change of air. 
I remained in New York till the end of January, when I ])ro- 
ceeded to make a tour in Canada, as it was quite impossible 
for any operation to take place on the Potomac, where deep 
mud, alternating with snow and frost, bound the contending 
armies in winter-quarters. 

On my return to New York, at the end of February, the 
North was cheered by some signal successes achieved in the 
West, principally by gunboats, operating on the lines of the 
great rivers. The greatest results have been obtained in 
the ca])ture of Fort Donaldson and Fort Henry, by Commo- 
dore Foote's flotilla cooperating with the land forces. The 
possession of an absolute naval supremacy, of course, gives 
the North United States powerful means of annoyance and 
inflicting injury and destruction on the enemy ; it also secures 
for them the means of seizing upon bases ot operations where- 
ever they please, of breaking up the enemy's lines, and main- 
taining communications ; but the example of Great Britain in 
the Revolutionary War should prove to the United States that 
such advantages do not, by any means, enable a belligerent to 
subjugate a determined people resolved on resistance to the 
last. The long-threatened encounter between Bragg and 
Browne has taken place at Pensacola, without etFect. and the 
attempts of the Federals to advance from Port Royal have 
been successfully resisted. Sporadic skirmishes have sprung 
up over every Border State ; but, on the whole, success has 
inclined to the Federals in Kentucky and Tennessee. 

On the 1st March, I arrived in Wa>l)ington once more, 



INTERVIEW WITH MR. STANTON. 595 

and found things very inucli as I had left them : tlie army 
recovering the effect of the winter's sickness and losses, ani- 
mated by the victories of their comrades in Western fields, 
and by the hope that the ever-coming to-morrow would see 
them in the field at last. In place of Mr. Cameron, an Ohio 
lawyer named Stanton, has been appointed Secretary of War. 
He came to Washington, a few years ago, to conduct some 
legal proceedings for Mr. Daniel Sickles, and by his energy, 
activity, and a ra[)id conversion from Democratic to Republi- 
can principles, as well as by his Union sentiments, recom- 
mended himself to the President and his Cabinet. 

The month of March passed over without any remarkable 
event in the field. When the army started at last to attack 
the enemy — a movement which was precipitated by hearing 
that they were moving away — they went out only to find the 
Confederates had fallen back by interior lines towards Rich- 
mond, and General McClellan was obliged to transport his 
army from Alexandria to the peninsula of Yorktown, where 
his reverses, his sufferings, and his disastrous retreat, are so 
■well known and so recent, that I need only mention them as 
among the most remarkable events which have yet occurred 
in this war. 

I had looked forward for many Aveary months to participat- 
ing in the movement and describing its results. Immediately 
on my arrival in Washington, I was introduced to Mr. Stan- 
ton by Mr. Ashman, formerly member of Congress and Sec- 
retary to Mr. Daniel Webster, and the Secretary, without 
making any positive pledge, used words, in Mr. Ashman's 
presence, which led me to believe he would give me permis- 
sion to draw rations, and undoubtedly promised to afford me 
every facility in his power. Subsequently he sent me a pri- 
vate pass to the War Department to enable me to get through 
the crowd of contractors and jobbers ; but on going there to 
keep my appointment, the Assistant Secretary of War told 
me Mr. Sianton had been summoned to a Cabinet Council by 
the Pi-esident. 

We had some conversation respecting the subject-matter 
of my application, which the Assistant Secretary seemed to 
think would be attended with many dilficulties, in consequence 
of tlie number of correspondents to the American ])apers wlio 
miglit demand the same privileges, and he intimated to me 
that Mr. Stanton was little disposed to encourage them in any 
way whatever. Now tliis is undoubtedly honest on Mr. Stan- 



596 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

ton's part, for he knows he might render himself popular by 
granting what they ask ; but he is excessively vain, and as- 
pires to be considered a rude, rough, vigorous Oliver Crom- 
well sort of man, mistaking some of the disagreeable attributes 
and the accidents of the external husk of the Great Protector 
for the brain and head of a statesman and a soldier. 

Tiie American officers with wliom I was intimate gave me 
to understand that I could accompany them, in case I received 
permission from the Government ; but they were obviously 
unwilling to encounter the abuse and calumny which would be 
heaped upon their heads by American papers, unless they 
could show the authorities did not disapprove of my presence 
in their camp. Several invitations sent to me were accom- 
panied by the phrase, " You will of course get a written per- 
mission from the War Department, and then there will be no 
difficulty." On the evening of the private theatricals by which 
Lord Lyons enlivened the inetfable dulness of Washington, I 
saw Mr. Stanton at the Legation, and he conversed with me 
for some time. I mentioned the difficulty connected with 
passes. He asked me what I wanted. I said, "An order to 
go with the army to Manassas." At his request I procured a 
sheet of paper, and he wrote me a pass, took a copy of it, wiiich 
he put in his pocket, and then handed the other to me. On 
looking at it, I perceived that it was a permission for me to 
go to Manassas and back, and that all officers, soldiers, and 
others, in the United States service, were to give me every 
assistance and show me every courtesy ; but the hasty return 
of tlie army to Alexandria rendered it useless. 

The Merrimac and Monitor encounter produced the pro- 
foundest impression in Washington, and unusual strictness wasj 
observed respecting passes to Fortress Monroe. 

March I'dlh. — I applied at the Navy Department for a 
passage down to Fortress Monroe, as it was expected the 
Merrimac was coming out again, but I could not obtain leave 
to go in any of the vessels. Captain llardman showed me a 
curious sketch of what he called the Turtle Tlior, an iron- 
cased machine witli a huge claw or grapnel, with which to 
secure the enemy whilst a steam hammer or a high iron fist, 
worked by the engine, cracks and smashes her iron armor. 
"For," says he, " tiie days of gunpowder are over." 

As soon as General McClellan commenced his movement, 
he sent a message to me by one of the French princes, that he 
would have great pleasure in allowing me to accompany his 



ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 597 

head-quarters in the field. I find the following, under the 
head of March 22d : — 

" Received a letter from General Marcy, chief of the staff, 
asking me to call at his office. He told me General McClel- 
lan directed him to say he had no objection whatever to 
my accompanying the army, ' but,' continued General Marcy, 
'you know we are a sensitive people, and that our press is 
exceedingly jealous. General McClelUm has many enemies 
who seek to pull him down, and scruple at no means of doing 
so. He and I would be glad to do anything in our power to 
help you, if you come with us, but we must not expose our- 
selves needlessly to attack. The army is to move to tlie York 
and James Rivers at once.' " 

All my arrangements were made that day with General 
Van Vliet, the quartermaster-general of head-quarters, I 
■was quite satisfied, from Mr. Stanton's promise and General 
Marcy's conversation, tliat I should have no furtlier difficulty. 
Our party was made up, consisting of Colonel Neville ; Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Fletcher, Scotch Fusilier Guards ; Mr. Lamy, 
and myself; and our passage was to be provided in the quar- 
termaster-general's boat. On the 26th of March, I went to 
Baltimore in company with Colonel Rowan, of the Royal Ar- 
tillery, who had come dowm for a few days to visit Washing- 
ton, intending to go on by the steamer to Fortress Mom-oe, as 
he was desirous of seeing his friends on board the Rinaldo, 
and I wished to describe the great flotilla assembled there and 
to see Captain Hewett once more. 

On arriving at Baltimore, we learned it would be necessary 
to get a special pass from General Dix, and on going to the 
General's head-quarters his aide-de-camp informed us that he 
had received special instructions recently from the War De- 
partment to grant no passes to Fortress INIonroe, unless to offi- 
cei's and soldiers going on duty, or to persons in the service 
of the United States. The aide-de-camp advised me to tele- 
graph to Mr. Stanton for permission, which I did, but no 
answer was received, and Colonel Rowan and I returned to 
Washington, thinking there would be a better chance of se- 
curing the necessary order there. 

Next day we went to the Department of War, and were 
shown into Mr. Stanton's room — his secretary informing us 
that he was engaged in the next room with the President and 
other Ministers in a council of war, but tliat he would no 
doubt receive a letter from me and send me out a reply. I 



598 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

accortlingly addressed a note to Mr. Stanton, requesting he 
would be good enough to give an order to Colonel Rowan, of 
the British army, and myself, to go by the mail boat from 
Baltimore to Monroe. In a short time Mr. Stanton sent out 
a note iu the following words : — " Mr. Stanton informs Mr. 
Russell no passes to Fortress Monroe can be given at present, 
unless to officers in the United States service." We tried the 
Navy Department, but no vessels were going down, they said ; 
and one of the officers suggested that we should ask for passes 
to go down and visit H. M. S. Rinaldo exclusively, which 
could not well be refused, he thought, to British subjects, and 
promised to take charge of the letter for Mr. Stanton and to 
telegraph the permission down to Baltimore. There we re- 
turned by the afternoon train and waited, but neither reply 
nor pass came for us. 

Next day we were disappointed also, and an officer of the 
Rinaldo, who had come up on duty from the ship, was refused 
permission to take us down on his return. I regretted these 
obstructions principally on Colonel Rowan's account, because 
he would have no opportunity of seeing the flotilla. He re- 
turned next day to New York, whilst I completed my prep- 
arations for the expedition and went back to Washington, 
where I received my pass, signed by General McClellan's 
chief of the staff, authorizing me to accompany the head- 
quartei's of the army under his command. So far as I know, 
Mr. Stanton sent no reply to my last letter, and calling with 
General Van Vliet at his house on his reception niglit, the 
door was opened by his brother-in-law, who said, " The Sec- 
retary was attending a sick child and could not see any per- 
son that evening," so I never met Mr. Stanton again. 

Stories had long been current concerning his exceeding 
animosity to General McClellan, founded perhaps on his ex- 
pressed want of confidence in the General's abilities, as much 
as on the dislike he felt towards a man who persisted in dis- 
regarding his opinions on matters connected with military 
operations. Ilis iulirmities of health and tendency to cere- 
bral excitement had been increased by the pressure of busi- 
ness, by the novelty of power, and by the angry passions to 
which individual antipathies and personal rancor give rise. 
No one who ever saw Mr. Stanton would expect from him 
courtesy of manner or delicacy of feeling ; but his aftectation 
of bluntness and straightforwardness of purpose might have 
led one to suppose he was honest and direct in purpose, as the 



A PASSAGE REFUSED. 599 

qualities I have mentioned are not always put forward by 
hypocrites to cloak fiuesse and sinister action. 

The rest of the story may be told in a few words. It was 
perfectly well known in Washington that I was going with the 
army, and I presume Mr. Stanton, if he had any curiosity 
about such a trifling matter, must have heard it also. I am 
told he was informed of it at the last moment, and then flew 
out into a coarse passion against General McClellan because 
he had dai'ed to invite or to take any one without his permis- 
sion. What did a Republican General want with foreign 
princes on his staff, or with foreign newspaper correspondents 
to puff' him up abroad ? 

Judging from the stealthy, secret way in which Mr. Stanton 
struck at General IMcCIellan the instant he had turned his 
back upon Washington, and crippled him in the field by sud- 
denly withdrawing his best division without a word of notice, 
I am inclined to fear he gratified whatever small passion dic- 
tated his course on this occasion also, by waiting till he knew 
I was fairly on board the steamer with my friends and bag- 
gage, just ready to move off, before he sent down a despatch 
to Van Vliet and summoned him at once to the War Office. 
When Van Vliet returned in a couple of hours, he made the 
communication to me that Mr. Stanton had given him written 
orders to prevent my passage, though even here he acted with 
all the cunning and indirection of the village attorney, not 
with the straightforwardness of Oliver Cromwell, whom it is 
laughable to name in the same breath with his imitator. He 
did not write, "Mr. Russell is not to go," or "The 'Times' 
correspondent is forbidden a passage," but he composed two 
orders, with all the official formula of the War Office, drawn 
up by the Quartermaster General of the army, by the direc- 
tion and order of the Secretary of War. No. 1 ordered " that 
no person should be permitted to embark on board any vessel 
in the United States service without an order from the War 
Department." No. 2 ordered " that Colonel Neville, Colonel 
Fletcher, and Captain Lamy, of the British army, having 
been invited by General McClellan to accompany the expedi- 
tion, were authorized to embark on board the vessel." 

General Van Vliet assured me that he and General 
McDowell had urged every argument they could think of 
in my favor, particularly the fact that I was the specially 
invited guest of General McClellan, and that I was actually 
provided with a pass by his order from the chief of his staff. 



600 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

With these orders before me, I had no alternative. 

General McCleilan was far away. Mr. Stanton had waited 
again until he was gone. General iNIarcy was away. I laid 
the statement of what had occurred before the President, who 
at first gave me hopes, from the wording of his letter, that he 
would overrule Mr. Stanton's order, but who next day in- 
formed me he could not take it upon himself to do so. 

It was plain I had now but one course left. My mission in 
the United States was to describe military events and opera- 
tions, or, in defect of them, to deal with such subjects as miglit 
be interesting to people at home. In the discharge of my 
duty, I had visited the South, remaining there until the ap- 
proach of actual operations and the establishment of the 
blockade, which cut off all communication from the Southern 
States except by routes which would deprive my correspond- 
ence of any value, compelled me to return to the North, where I 
could keep up regular communication with Europe. Soon after 
my return, as unfortunately for myself as the United States, 
the Federal troops were repulsed in an attempt to inarch upon 
Richmond, and terminated a disorderly retreat by a disgrace- 
ful panic. The whole incidents of what I saw were fairly 
stated by an impartial witness, who, if anything, was inclined 
to favor a nation endeavoring to suppress a rebellion, and who 
was by no means impressed, as the results of his recent tour, 
with the admiration and respect for the people of the Confed- 
erate States which their enormous sacrifices, extraordinary 
gallantry, and almost unparalleled devotion, have long since 
extorted from him in common with all the world. The letter 
in which that account was given came back to America after 
the first bitterness and humiliation of defeat had passed, and 
disappointment and alarm had been succeeded by such a for- 
midable outburst of popular resolve, that the IS'orth forgot 
everything in the instant anticipations of a glorious and tri- 
umphant revenge. 

Every feeling of the American was hurt — above all, his 
vanity and his pride, by the manner in which the account of 
the reverse had been received in Europe ; and men whom I 
scorned too deeply to reply to, dexterously took occasion to di- 
rect on my head the full storm of popular indignation. Not, 
indeed, that I had escaped before. Ere a line from my pen 
reached America at all — ere my first letter had crossed the 
Atlantic to England — the jealousy and hatred felt for all 
things British — for press or principle, or representative of 



MY MISSION ENDED. GOl 

either — had found expression in Northern journals ; but that 
I was prepared for. I knew well no foreigner had ever 
penned a line — least of all, no Englishman — concerning the 
United States of North America, their people, manners, and 
institutions, who had not been treated to the abuse which is 
supposed by their journalists to mean criticism, no matter 
what the justness or moderation of the views expressed, the 
sincerity of purpose, and the truthfulness of the writer. In 
the South, the press threatened me with tar and feathers, be- 
cause I did not see the beauties of their domestic institution, 
and wrote of it in my letters to England exactly as I spoke 
of it to eveijy one who conversed with me on the subject when 
I was amongst them ; and now the Northern papers recom- 
mended expulsion, ducking, riding rails, and other cognate 
modes of insuring a moral conviction of error ; endeavored to 
intimidate me by threats of duels or personal castigations : 
gratified their malignity by ludicrous stories of imaginary 
affronts or annoyances to which I never was exposed ; and 
sought to prevent the authorities extending any protection tow- 
ards me, and to intimidate officers from showing me any civil- 
ities. 

In pursuance of my firm resolution I allowed the slanders 
and misrepresentations which poui*ed from their facile sources 
for months to pass by unheeded, aad trusted to the calmer 
sense of the people, and to the discrimination of those who 
thought over the sentiments expressed in my letters, to do me 
iustice. 

I need not enlarge on the dangers to which I was exposed. 
Those who are acquainted with America, and know the life 
of the great cities, will best appreciate the position of a man 
who went forth daily in the camps and streets holding his life 
in his hand. This expression of egotism is all I shall ask in- 
dulgence for. Nothing could have induced me to abandon my 
post or to recoil before my assailants ; but at last a power I 
could not resist struck me down. When to the press and pop- 
ulace of the United States, the President and the Government 
of Washington added their power, resistance would be unwise 
and impracticable. In no camp could I have been received 
— in no place useful. I went to America to witness and de- 
scribe the operations of the great army before Washington in 
the field, and when I was forbidden by the proper authorities 
to do so, my mission terminated at once. 

On the evening of April Ith, as soon as I was in receipt 
20 



602 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. 

of the President's last communication, I telegraplied to New 
York to engage a passage by the steamer whicli left on the 
following Wednesday. Next day was devoted to packing up 
and to taking leave of my friends — English and American — 
whose kindnesses I shall remember in my heart of hearts, and 
the following Monday 1 left Washington, of which, after all, 
I shall retain many pleasant memories and keep souvenirs 
green forever. I arrived in New York late on Tuesday even- 
ing, and next day I saw the shores receding into a dim gray 
fog, and ere the night fell was tossing about once more on 
the stormy Atlantic, with the head of our good ship pointing, 
thank Heaven, towards Europe. 



THE END. 



JUN 8-1949 



